


Collapsar

by rightsidethru



Category: Celtic Mythology, Christian Bible, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Alternate Universe - Magic, Angels, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Christianity, Demons, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Fairies, Halecestinski, Halenski, Halinski - Freeform, Kate Argent Comes With Her Own Warning Labels, M/M, Multi, NaNoWriMo, NaNoWriMo 2017, Nephilim, Polyamory, Prophecy, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, Sidhe, Steter - Freeform, Steterek - Freeform, Temporary Character Death, Threesome - M/M/M, Uncle-Nephew Relationship, Uncle/Nephew Incest, Unseelie Court, Wild Hunt, Wordcount: 50.000-100.000, sterek, the wild hunt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-02-09 06:13:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 45,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12881862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rightsidethru/pseuds/rightsidethru
Summary: Deals with devils, a life that gets turned around at the age of sixteen:Prophecies, and the War that rages between Heaven and Hell and the gray area between it all.(And Stiles is the linchpin that turns everything on its head.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone was wondering where I was during the month of November, this is pretty much the answer: I decided to try NaNoWriMo for the first time. XD; I haven't written a 'traditional' novel in quite some time and I wanted to get back into the swing of things.
> 
> The story is completed; there are five parts to it and I'll be updating every two weeks.
> 
> The title, Collapsar, was a term more commonly used pre-1950s and referenced an astronomical event that created either a white dwarf star, a neutron star--or a black hole. ([Here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapsar).)
> 
> Quick Story Time: Additionally, this story is based upon a 'verse that I had started with [justmccallmeangel](http://justmccallmeangel.tumblr.com/) back when we both had more time to RP. Jenn had a Derek muse and I had a Stiles, and the storyline that we had plotted mirrors to about halfway through part one. Real life and obligations caught up with both of us and we were never able to get any further into the RP thread. The story lingered in the back of my mind since then, and I had always wanted to revisit it _somehow_. If anyone ever wants to read what we _did_ manage to write, you can do so [here](http://the-heart-and-the-wildfire.tumblr.com/tagged/%5B%5B-Hell-Is-Empty-And-All-The-Devils-Are-Here). Regardless, hats off to Jenn for helping me create such a rich 'verse that managed to dog my heels for several years until I finally managed to get it out with this year's NaNoWriMo. XD
> 
> Please mind the tags. I'll be updating them when necessary or appropriate.
> 
> * 
> 
> Kudos and comments are appreciated and loved! <3
> 
> *
> 
> http://rightsidethru.tumblr.com/

** PART I. **

_”Hell is just a frame of mind.”_  
~ Christopher Marlowe,  **Doctor Faustus**

+

 _And my heart is a hollow plain_  
_For the devil to dance again_  
_And the room is too quiet, oh oh oh oh_  
_I was looking for the breath of a life_  
_A little touch of a heavenly light_  
_But all the choirs in my head sang, no oh oh oh_  
[“Breath of Life”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0EVEXX9kpk) – Florence + The Machine

++

Claudia Stilinski was pale, frail and too thin and tiny in the stark largesse of the hospital bed, the woman so much more colorless—impossible though it seemed—than the bleached sheets she lay upon. The eight year-old perched—precarious in how he sat but stubborn enough to refuse any other option given to him—in the hospital room’s stiff chair reached across the empty space between the uncomfortable chair and the bed, skinny fingers tangling desperately with his mother’s. She was sleeping, lashes dark upon her cheeks, and the child watched the steady, pulsing beat of the heart monitor with a razor-sharp focus that most others would have found out of character for such a young boy.

It was nearing the end of visiting hours and Stiles had been there since school had let out hours before. His mother had been asleep for the entire time, restless and making muted sounds of pain that the morphine couldn’t quite dull: each whimper broke Stiles’ heart a little bit more and the amber-eyed boy had to constantly blink to hold back tears, free hand curling tight over his jeans as he fought to keep his hold on his mother’s hand gentle. He hated seeing her like this, hated having to visit his mom here in Beacon Hills’ Memorial Hospital; more than anything, Stiles wanted her home and well and smiling while she sang lullabies beneath her breath as she baked sweets while he was away at school. Stiles wanted his _mom_.

“Stiles.”

The boy flinched abruptly and glanced up from his too-still vigil, whiskey eyes nearly dark with too many thoughts as his gaze caught his father’s. The Sheriff’s face was tight with stress and concern, but the father tried to offer his son a smile as he nodded towards the door to indicate that it time to leave. And this–this was Stiles’ least favorite time of the day: when it was time to leave his mom behind, alone--left to suffer in her hospital room until he came to visit again tomorrow.

Gently, Stiles untangled his fingers from his mother’s, setting her hand down next to her hip–patting the thin skin over her wrist–and padded on silent steps towards his father, sneakers cat-quiet over the linoleum. Finally at the Sheriff’s side, John’s hand settled over his son’s nape, fingers flexing reassuringly as he guided the child out towards the hallway. Both were silent, neither able to say a word as they headed down towards the patrol car.

Tension thrummed between father and son, and Stiles spent the entire ride back home staring out of the car’s window, lost in shadow-kissed thoughts as Sheriff Stilinski turned the police scanner down low so that it was only a background murmur that set a certain type of mood between them. It didn’t take much longer before they were pulling into their house’s—no longer a _home_ —driveway, and Stiles followed after his father like a lost duckling as the Sheriff unlocked the front door. 

As the front door closed behind them both, the amber-eyed boy took a moment to hug his dad goodnight, and then Stiles headed upstairs to get ready for bed–slipping into pajamas quickly and grabbing one of the library books he’d borrowed the week before. They were books he didn’t really want his dad to see: books on religion and heaven and hell and angels and demons--perhaps a bit advanced for him, but Stiles had always been rather precocious. The knowledge that his mother was dying just spurred the boy on, wondering late at night and when his father was safe and asleep in his bed just what sort of fate awaited his mother when she finally died. If Stiles was honest with himself, he hoped that she would become an angel, would become someone’s guardian angel if she couldn’t be his own.

(Small, futile wishes that he clutched tight to his chest, knowing that they were pointlessly thought—but _wanting_ , desperately, all the same. Because if his mom wouldn’t survive this—and she wouldn’t, he _knew_ she wouldn’t—then Stiles at least wanted something _beautiful_ for her at the end of all of this suffering.)

Curling around the boy’s latest acquisition, the book that discussed the various hierarchies of angels and demons, Stiles brushed his fingers over the section on archangels, chewing roughly on his lower lip when he got to the chapter on guardian angels ( _I wish I wish I wish I wish_ )–and held back a rough shiver as pale fingers flipped a page and the words ‘crossroads demon’ caught his attention. Unsettled, Stiles glanced away and closed the book, deciding to just sleep for the night.

The boy dreamt of glowing, crimson eyes and smiles filled with too many teeth: of promises made in the darkest part of the night, of whispers gliding past snake lips, oozing like honey. There was a sort of warning threaded within the dream, a low level feeling of unease that permeated and settled heavily in the pit of Stiles’ stomach even when he awoke the next morning… but so, too, there came the sense of horrified fascination: a _what if?_ that the eight year-old already knew was too dangerous to enact on. And yet…

_What if?_

+

The next day, Stiles’ mother’s progress (what little there had been) took a dive, health crashing dangerously low–visitors denied entrance into her room while doctors and nurses worked at trying to stabilize her into something resembling good health (or close enough to faking it). Denied the chance to visit his mother and hours still remaining before his father got off work, Stiles opted to head to the library to return the stack of books he had taken out just the week before. 

The building was cool, temperature turned down low—maybe to help preserve the books; Stiles thought he had read something about that during one of his many Wikipedia binges—and dark with shadows. Beacon Hills’ library was one of the older buildings in town, relocated to one of the few Victorian houses that had survived the Gold Rush: family home repurposed and opened its doors to the community at large. For Stiles’ own part, he had a love-hate relationship with the building: he _loved_ how it was filled with so much knowledge, all public and readily waiting for a day’s worth of exploring and finding; he _hated_ the creaking of the floorboards beneath his sneakered feet, the way that his breath fogged in the air as he made his way downstairs to the non-fiction sections, how it always felt like someone was watching him—the feeling eerie enough that the hairs always raised on the back of his neck.

With that particular caution in mind, Stiles slipped into the old house and immediately headed towards the librarian’s check-out desk, answering Mrs. Beacham’s hello with a wan smile of his own. Worry for his mom made cheerfulness hard to come by, but the amber-eyed child knew that Claudia would have at least wanted him to stick to the barest minimum of manners.

It was as Stiles was handing the pile over to the elderly librarian that the boy paused, fingers brushing the embossed leather spine of the book that discussed the hierarchies of demons and angels. He lingered for a long moment, remembering the night before when he came across the passage about crossroads demons. That lingering sense of unease grew heavier, almost making him nauseous with the tilting sense of vertigo that practically _screamed_ at Stiles not to take any step closer, and the dark-haired boy _knew_ that he was standing on the precipice of a drop that there would be no recovering from. No going back if he ended up taking that single step forward: no take-backs, no looking back—just the lunge and its inevitable conclusion. But…

_Deals with devils._

…for his mom, though, _any_ deal would be worthwhile.

Again, Stiles couldn’t help but wonder: _What if?_

He just wanted her to _live_.

Swallowing roughly, Stiles pushed the books towards the old woman and quickly headed out the building, ignoring that creeping sense of _something just behind me_ all the while. The boy headed back towards home: he let himself drift in thoughts as the weight of eyes slowly faded away and instead buried himself in plans and patterns and 'what ifs’ that branched off like a tree’s limbs into possibilities–wondering and considering and weighing the chances of… well, this _actually_ working. 

Desperation tugged low at the boy’s belly, pushing against the weight of trepidation: but Stiles’ choices were few and far between and his mother only ever seemed to be getting worse, not better. The writing was there on the wall, just waiting to be read—and the internet was a terrifying place, indeed, for a child who knew how to navigate it and who tended to be far too curious about the medical terms scrawled across Claudia Stilinski’s chart. Things would only be going downhill from here as the frontotemporal dementia began to enter its final stages (soon enough, his mother wouldn’t be able to _recognize_ him, and that thought was an absolutely terrifying one). And, more than anything else in the entire world, Stiles wanted his mom to come  _home_.

Stiles told himself that he hadn’t yet reached a decision: it was a lie, however, and a new type of determination settled into the marrow of his bones as he stepped up onto his house’s porch, shaking fingers fumbling with his key as he tried to unlock the door.

_What if?_

\--a dangerous thought, one that led to reckless, mindless risk:

The rest of the day was spent gathering together the supplies that Stiles knew he’d need, the things that the book mentioned even offhandedly; the end result probably wouldn’t cover everything because… well, why would a book published and easily accessible actually _list_  everything needed to summon a demon? But… Stiles could still try. In the end, that was the only thing he _could_ do, helpless as he truly was and barred from both the hospital and the sheriff’s department—denied any sort of parental comfort and left to bury himself in despair-fueled desperation.

Moving from room to room, the boy gathered what he determined necessary until all that was needed was time: time to pass, time to wait, time to say good-bye as his father came home for dinner and then immediately headed out for the overnight shift that John had been drafted for. Time, too, to watch the numbers tick away on the digital clock on Stiles’ bedside table, digits all aglow in a neon hue as midnight began to slowly approach.

Hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second: the shadows stretched across Stiles’ bedroom’s floor before twilight kissed the earth and everything shaded to grayscale, tinged with shadows and secrets.

At 11:45 p.m., the boy made his way down the stairs and through the front door, holding a large shoebox full of various things close to his chest as Stiles marched towards the part of the street where men were doing construction work and hadn’t yet managed to finish. The asphalt and concrete had been torn up days before, revealing the dirt and mud down below, underneath the black chunks of rubble, and making it easy for the child to dig through the wet earth to bury his box in as deep of a hole as Stiles could make: hoping, hoping– _please, please, please_ –hoping that something would happen once midnight struck true.

Minutes passed and Stiles spent them staring at the upturned earth where he had buried the small offering that he prayed would be enough to attract  _someone’s_  attention. Gods or angels or demons: at this point, it didn’t matter at all to the point. Just as long as they had the power to _fix_ his mom and make her better. Just as long as they had _some_ sort of divine might, blessed or cursed it may be, to guarantee that Stiles’ mother would heal. _Somehow._ Any way.

As darkness loomed and shadows stretched further upon the earth, curling 'round his young body in a wicked embrace, Stiles became a jittery mess of nerves and energy, fingers twitching and knees bouncing and toes wiggling in the confines of his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle sneakers. The amber-eyed boy could feel his heart racing, faster than when he took his Adderall, a _putt-putt-putt_ ering, hummingbird presence against his ribcage that spent every frantic beat trying desperately to escape.

Stiles was anxious and afraid.

But he stayed.

Midnight struck, finally, and the breath that Stiles had been holding escaped him in one long, drawn-out _whoosh_ of air; nothing stirred, no animal sounded, no bug chirped, and the hairs on the back of the child’s neck rose in sudden, marrow-deep terror even as a pair of Hellfire-hot hands settled over the slim curve of his shoulders. 

“My, my, my~ Well, isn’t this a _surprise_. In all of my years of striking deals, never have I come across someone as young as  _you_ , sweet cheeks, able to summon someone like  _me_.”

Head tilting back slowly, terrified of what sight awaited him, Stiles opened his eyes and _stared_ at a young woman who looked nothing less than absolutely _normal_ : thick, honey blonde hair that fell down her back in loose curls and matte, ebon-dark eyes and the knowing curve of a smile that could have been effortlessly sweet if it had been any less _sharper_ and full of teeth. The female demon leaned lower to press a kiss to the pale, mole-speckled plane of Stiles’ cheek, and the child was engulfed in the smothering scent of sulfur and ash. 

“Well, hotshot. Let’s hear what you’d be willing to sell your soul for,” the demon purred against the boy’s cheek, breath too-hot to be anywhere near considered _human_. He closed his eyes, just for a moment, and a single tear slowly trickled down from beneath his dark lashes. “Popularity? Sweets? A girl to notice you? Smarts? You can ask for anything—if you know the price that you’ll be paying in the end, baby boy.”

“…my mom,” Stiles whispered, mouth suddenly dry even as his amber eyes opened once more to levelly meet the Other’s gaze, and the demon’s smile suddenly turned that much more predatory. The boy knew that this was a bad idea, but he had nothing else left and nothing else to lose. If this didn’t work out… then it didn’t matter what came afterwards, not really. Stiles just wanted his  _mom_. Anything, everything–for his mom.

“Then let’s make a _deal_ , sweetheart~” the crossroads demon whispered into the night, running affectionate fingers through the mortal’s shorn hair even as her own thick tresses fell forward to cut off the night and to surround the boy in too-hot warmth, soot thick in Stiles’ nose.

+

Two minutes to midnight and fifteen year-old Stiles Stilinski couldn’t help but wonder with an idle sort of curiosity if sixteen was going to feel at all different than fifteen. He honestly doubted it (after all, what was the _real_ difference between 'sweet sixteen and never been kissed’ and 'snarky fifteen and never been kissed’?), thought it just an overblown hype layered upon a number that so many other teenagers attributed a sort of magic to; it was stupid, mindlessly so, and all it meant to Stiles was that this was just another birthday that his mom was going to miss.

According to movies and shows and the teenage world at large, ‘sweet sixteen’ was supposed to be a milestone in Stiles’ life—an important marker in the overall grand scheme of things—and instead it managed to fill the teen with a muted sort of rage: one that built itself up constantly over the years, never fading, always lingering in the back of his mind like banked embers.

A spark just waiting for the right sort of kindling to set it all ablaze.

Years later and there was nothing Stiles had come across to somehow dull the bitterness at the fact that his mother had ended up dying mere weeks after making the contract with the crossroads demon; the Other had promised that his mom would live, sealed the deal with Stiles in the burning press of a damning kiss and in the tang of copper from a scar that the whiskey-eyed teen still carried across the pulse point of his wrist–and the boy’s mom had still died. 

'A waste’ seemed… an effortlessly cruel understatement, one that was beyond comprehension, and remembering the events that had occurred that night oftentimes brought still-furious tears to Stiles’ eyes. But: another year gone, another year missed, another birthday his mother had not lived to see. A milestone in Stiles’ life he could not share with the woman he loved so desperately: before, now, and always.

Sweet sixteen. Such a seemingly important age to every teenager. _What a joke._

“Fuck you,” the teen whispered as he stared up at the burgundy hue of his ceiling, allowing his eyes to unfocus for a moment as he remembered the self-satisfied curve of the demon’s smile, so obvious in its intent now that Stiles was older and able to look upon his memories with a more jaded and knowing eye. “Fuck you, you two-faced bitch.”

It was a useless sort of rage: no point in railing up at the heavens for the injustice done to Stiles and his family—an uphill battle that the teen was already pre-destined in losing, the odds shifting further and further away from him even as the years ticked ever onwards towards his eighteenth birthday and when everything was supposedly going to come to a close—one way or another, despite the fact that the crossroads demon hadn’t fulfilled her end of the bargain.

Snorting quietly to himself, Stiles rolled over to press his face into his pillow and burrowed beneath the thick sheets of his bed just as the clock struck twelve o'clock. Officially sweet sixteen: a new milestone reached.

However:

Unexpected and unanticipated: energy suddenly surged through the teen, agonizingly painful as lava oozed through his veins and scorched through his heart. Stiles was lit on fire from within, lighting up and flaring a rainbow’s plethora of colors across the walls of his bedroom, flashing in a steady, psychedelic pulse that mirrored the frentic beating of his heart.

The pain was immediate and overwhelming both, and all Stiles could do was clutch tight to his blankets and desperately reach for some way to ride the agony out—lungs locked up upon the first wave of pain, and the tears that slipped out from beneath the dark line of his lashes were bitter with serotonin and norepinephrine, heavy and thick with salt.

There was an ancient sort of power, rooted in Genesis--in creation and the start of it all--running through Stiles’ veins: a Spark that he had inherited from his mother’s line, passed down from the Nephilim as a divine-kissed blessing and curse both, painted in shades of gray and the fine line between good and evil. It was an inferno’s worth of power, enough of a powerhouse to bring galaxies to their knees, and the entirety of it was put under red-tinged demonic pressure through the contract the teen had made with the crossroads demon; with that ticking of the clock and time slipping on by, the powder keg of potentialities erupted into a Divine wildfire, burning solar-bright as it flared into _Grace_. And Stiles, too, became _Other_.

The amber-eyed boy’s body bowed tight, spine shifting upwards into a perfect arch—shadows of wings burning after-images onto his walls and the posters covering them–and Stiles managed to give one muffled, agonized scream into his pillow between the clenched line of his teeth before the pain finally forced him to pass out and he dove headfirst into darkness and the peaceful oblivion that it promised.

Hours passed as the boy remained unconscious.

The world turned—and changed, moments stilling and pausing as angels and demons and all of the creatures listed in-between shifted their attention back to Earth, sharp and greedy and intent as an unexpected surprise reached majority and came into his powers.

It had been quite some time since a child of the Nephilim had walked amongst the humans; Claudia had been one of the last—and Stiles…? Had inherited all of her prowess and more. With no moral compass coded within his very DNA, the teen was a creature of free will and choice: and a threat to all of that, besides.

And, still, the night moved on--

Stiles didn’t stir for hours, midnight passing into dawn and early morning, but the very foundations of Creation had been rocked with the teen’s violent coming of age–light and dark stirring and coming to the foreground, rising to arms to see just what bit of Divinity had Sparked to life at the witching hour. (The answer: a tool and treasure both.) 

Oblivious to the chaos that was now focusing in his direction (and the hunting horns calling for his blood or body or power) and the contract that had been rekindled, its timeframe shortening by several years so that he could be dragged _downdowndown_ \--through the portal and into the depths of Hell, the now-sixteen year-old Stiles woke with a low groan of lingering pain, eyes crusted shut with sleep and the remnants of tears. It was a chore to roll out of bed, but Stiles dug his heels in and managed to do so—hobbling towards the bathroom and the promise of a hot shower within. The temptation to remain in bed was great, especially considering the fact that every step was filled with pain, but hot water was a tempting mistress that Stiles wasn’t willing to say no to.

He paused, though, in the middle of gingerly pulling off a shirt: turning around to glance over a shoulder, brows furrowing at the sight of bruises marring the planes of his shoulderblades. “What the hell…?” the amber-eyed teen murmured to himself, boggled at how he had managed to pick the marks up—the pain had been immediate last night, all-encompassing and thorough, but Stiles didn’t remember accidentally running into anything even as he was buried beneath the agony. And the bruises were odd, following the arched edge of his shoulderblades. How the hell had he managed to get bruises _there_ , paralleling each other so perfectly, but the rest of his back remained untouched…?

Shaking his head and deciding to make it a problem for Future Stiles to deal with, the teen finished stripping and immediately made a beeline for the shower and its welcomed, promised relief. The moment that the hot water hit his skin, Stiles’ knees almost gave out beneath him—the relief so profound and immediate, and the teen just stood beneath the spray and soaked in the comfort offered.

The shower ended sooner than what Stiles would have otherwise wanted, but with the drought happening throughout all of California and the mandatory water preservation rules that had been put in place… there wasn’t really any choice in the matter, especially since his father would have made him pay the fine. Dressed for the day in sweats and an old shirt, Stiles made his leisurely way downstairs for breakfast: he was still sore, horribly so, and only managed to pick halfheartedly at his waffles before giving the food up as a lost cause.

Eventually, Stiles finally just pushed the plate away when his appetite disappeared completely. He tossed the remainder of his breakfast into the trash, phone in one hand and typing away at it distractedly--sending out a text to his best friend, Scott, to see if he’d be interested in meeting Stiles down at the high school for a late morning-early afternoon lacrosse practice. It was probably an absolutely horrible idea to suggest, especially considering just how awful and tired and achy Stiles still felt, even after the hot shower, but… Scott had been pushing more and more for them to make first line in the upcoming school year. The puppy eyes had always been rather effective, even after years of expose, but that also meant that the amber-eyed teen would have to go over and beyond his usual amount of effort given because, _yeah_ , weekday practices with the rest of the team were brutal but maybe if he and Scott added in practices on the weekends, too, they’d actually manage to finally make first string like Scott desperately wanted. (Honestly, the older of the two suspected that a girl was somehow involved in Scott’s sudden gung-ho attitude, especially since the sudden goal came out left field.) 

Already comfortably clothed in case Scott was awake enough to send back a reply text, Stiles grabbed the Jeep’s keys before locking up the house and heading down to his car. Despite the soreness that still permeated through the entirety of Stiles’ body, there was also a feeling of _lightness_ , of buoyancy, that threaded through the marrow of his bones: an underlying sort of strength and rooted itself deep, foundation centered in the shadows hollows of his soul—there was a _change_ within Stiles and that feeling of unease and trepidation that had lingered so prevalently throughout the last few weeks of his mother’s illness returned and became a weight that kept him firmly situated on the ground despite the fact that the teen currently felt like he could _fly_.

Settling himself in the front seat of the Jeep, Stiles reached out with the keys to rev up the engine. A spark flickered to life on the very tips of his fingers, a bright pulse of starfire that flashed through the cabin, and it jumped from the teen’s finger to the ignition slot—and Roscoe’s engine rumbled to life without Stiles ever turning the key over.

The teen fell silent, fear creeping up along the bowed line of his spine, and Stiles stared down at that empty ignition slot with an amber gaze that went muted with worry—what he had just done wasn’t normal, was something he could picture happening in the pages of one of his X-Men comics: a mutant coming to power, abilities awakened and ready for the molding… and Stiles remembered how a lot of their stories went, especially the ones that Professor X wasn’t able to reach in time.

Stiles’ fingers curled tightly around his keyring, smothering down the slight trembling of his body ( _this isn’t normal that shouldn’t have happened not even static electricity can explain it away **what happened to me last night??**_ ), then put the Jeep in gear and pulled out onto the street to head towards his school.

+

It felt… _odd_ … going through town: Different, but not. 

The streets and various neighborhoods that Stiles passed were quiet and busy, all and the same as before and the opposite, too--like reality was _just_ slightly twisted on its side, and Stiles couldn’t help but feel the barest bit off-balanced. It was a general feeling of unwellness that had started last night and the sudden bought of pain, but the unusualness that had accompanied his attempt to start the Jeep certainly hadn’t helped matters, either. 

And yet… 

Stiles kept one eye on the road and the other on the surroundings he passed. Things should have been normal or _un_ normal, the here-and-now opting for one choice over the other: But everyone still looked like they were doing their usual Saturday morning routine, no matter the fact that the persistent feeling of _wrong wrong wrong_ dogged the heels of the Jeep and the passenger within. With nothing else to explain away that particular feeling, Stiles _knew_ it had to have just been him feeling this way. And yet the whiskey-eyed teen couldn’t shake the subtle sense of _wrongness_ that settled over his shoulders and pounded against his temples in a frantic ploy of _look! at! me!_ \--attention grabbing to the point that Stiles couldn’t look away despite the lightflares that edged into the peripheral of his vision. 

All together, it was something that roiled within the boy’s gut and brought a jittery sense of anticipation to Stiles’ limbs, but no matter how closely he looked or the glances he snuck, sidelong and searching, there didn’t seem to be anything  _wrong_. 

Trying to shrug off the pervading sense of doom—hanging over his head like an invisible Sword of Damocles—as Stiles eased into his usual parking space, the teen grabbed his gear and hopped out of his Jeep. Equipment in hand and ready to play—despite the lack of a reply from Scott—Stiles spared once last glance around himself, taking note of the empty parking lot, before heading towards the lacrosse field at a ground-eating jog. 

(Because, if nothing else, Coach’s suicides were good for something).

And yet… 

And yet that feeling remained.

 _Lingered_.

 _Loomed_.

\--only got worse as Stiles took that first step onto the field.

“Oh, my God. Get a grip. _There’s nothing wrong._ Get over yourself, for fuck’s sake,” the teen scolded himself aloud, grateful that he was still currently alone even as Stiles rubbed tiredly at an eye with the heel of a palm and tried to let go of the soreness that still burrowed deep within his muscles. The lingering feeling of unease continued to linger, as well, and the whiskey-eyed boy tried his best to ignore it for the time being. There was little enough he _could_ do otherwise and, maybe, it was best to just put it aside to examine more closely later on—if he was feeling more mentally capable of looking over the exact same feeling that had become his most prevalent emotion during his mother’s death (fact: it was very likely that Stiles would just set it aside and continue ignoring it).

He dumped his lacrosse gear on one of the benches that flanked the field and settled into the comfortable, familiar pace of the exercise sets that Coach Finstock always ensured that the team warmed up with. The stretches were a bit more painful this time around—the soreness spiking into genuine twinges of pain as Stiles attempted to limber up—but the teen knew that there would be more pain to come if he _didn’t_ at least do the basics to get ready his practice. With Scott not responding—either choosing to sleep in today or maybe off with the mystery girl Stiles still didn’t know anything about due to the other’s silence—it was most likely that Stiles would be practicing alone today. What he’d be able to accomplish on his own would be much more limited without a partner, but… a little bit of practice was better than no practice at all.

Appropriately warmed up, Stiles kicked off from the sidelines and began his first lap around the field as his legs eased into a steady, ground-eating lope that was more a testament to the teen’s stamina rather than speed. He’d always done well whenever Coach made the lacrosse team sign up for the track team—and there was something that Stiles had always found rather soothing as the team jogged through the thick forests surrounded Beacon Hills, air scented with green and growing thing. There was a serene sort of beauty to the scenery that they made their way through, and it always _settled_ something within Stiles, energized him to the point that he was able to outpace everyone else.

It must have rained at some point last night after Stiles had passed out: there was a scent of ozone and fresh water that still tinted the air with the distinctive scent of _spring_ , and the green underfoot was slick with the remnants of dew and rainfall; Stiles slipped several times, almost falling as his feet gave out beneath him, but still managing to catching himself last minute to regain his balance and continue on with the steady _thump-thump-thump_ of feet upon the ground.

As the Stiles rounded the corner of the field that kissed the edge of the woods, the foreboding that he had awoken to darkened further, settling like a stone at the bottom of his stomach—heavy enough to drag the teen under, clutching at his legs with tenacious, unrelenting hands. The closer Stiles got to the forest, the more prevalent that feeling became: the rhythmic beat of his feet upon the grass became irregular and off-centered, and it wasn’t long before Stiles finally stilled completely as he faced the blank face of the entrance to the woods. Mist trickled amongst the trees’ bases, twisting eerily over and under and around the trees’ roots: perfectly set like the opening scene to a Gothic novel.

To accompany that particular setting—

A dark shape, situated low to the ground, shifted in the peripheral of Stiles’ vision. The teen tensed—he _knew_ that no one was supposed to be out here; that was one of the reasons why he and Scott always practiced alone at the school, knowing that no one would be around to mock their practices—and took a step backwards as his head jerked in the direction of that barely-there, blurred motion.

_Nothing._

Stiles released a shaky breath, air shuddering from his lungs as the boy tried to release some of the tension that had clenched his muscles up while adrenaline and low-key fear flooded his body with the chemical urge of either fight or flight.

 _I feel like I’m going crazy,_ Stiles thought to himself and huffed a self-deprecating laugh while a forearm wiped away the sweat that had gathered at his temples. Standing still once more, still wary at what he _thought_ he might have seen, the teen eventually shook his head and turned away from the forest’s entrance when nothing moved except the thick fog amongst the trees.

 _Stupid, stupid, stupid_ , the teen muttered internally to himself, wishing that Scott had showed up: the other’s presence would have gone a long way in reassuring Stiles, settling him and offering a sort of foundation to pattern himself off of when large portions of today had already felt so… _off_.

Stiles stopped before he turned completely, however.

There—just yards from him—sitting where there had been _nothing_ , just open air, only moments before: a dark shape, matte black and still starkly contrasted against the grayscaled hues that the forest provided. And, though he _knew_ \--remembered from a fifth grade project, researching for it forever and a lifetime ago—that wolves hadn’t lived in California in over sixty years… Stiles _knew_ that what he was looking at was a wolf.

He took a step back, limbs tensing as he forced himself not to run—he couldn’t, knew that it would trigger the wolf’s prey drive if he did: there was danger here, no way to deny it, but it may have still been possible to be able to find some way out of this situation that ended with the teen still intact, still whole and unharmed. Stiles’ fear was a heavy scent in the air, thick and acrid with its bitter tang, and the amber-eyed boy fought to keep his breathing even and steady even as he took another slow, careful step backwards.

A growl forced Stiles into pausing, entire body going taut at the unexpected sound, and the teen jerked his gaze away from the solitary, dark figure before him to instead glance towards the breakline that signified the forest’s edge: another pitch-black shadow slinked out from the underbrush, fading into view as it slipped from the fog’s thick embrace—another figure and another after that, one by one, and it took only a moment’s realization for Stiles to _know_ that it wasn’t just a single wolf that he’d have to deal with. It was a pack.

 _Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck--_ \- a litany of curse words filling Stiles’ mind with static as he fought the onset of panic and fear, knowing that the only way he’d be able to get out of this was by keeping a cool head. He had to figure a way out of this, had to be safe and whole—the boy’s father was on shift today and Stiles absolutely could not have his dad be one of the first responders to see what he’d look like after the wolf pack was finally done with his body. Stiles couldn’t put his dad through that particular brand of hell, not after how he had been with Claudia’s death.

Eyes flicking across the lacrosse field, quickly calculating how far away the school was—how much time it would take to reach the doors—and knowing all the while that that specific route would be a lost cause. The building was too far away and the wolves would overtake him long before he reached the locker room’s door. Instead: Stiles’ razor-sharp attention settled upon the bleachers, bright gaze making note of the criss-crossing girders that made up the seat’s solid foundation. He could climb, using the middle point “x” as a type of stepping stool—move higher and higher as necessary until he was out of claw and fang range. _If_ Stiles managed to reach the bleachers in time. _If_ he managed to be faster than the pack that slowly gathered around that first wolf, their alpha. _If if if_ : too many _if_ s, but it was the only chance that Stiles had of survival.

A fine trembling had set up residence in his body and the teen’s breath was coming fast enough to nearly force him into hyperventilating: terror was thick and ever-present, but Stiles fought through it—wanted to _live_ more than the grip of fear had upon his mind and body.

Stiles tensed, just for a moment, and then turned on his heel and _ran_ with everything within him towards the bleachers and the only chance he had at surviving.

The wolves bayed behind him, howling and snarling and growling as one called to the other to the hunt, and the teen couldn’t chance looking over his shoulder to see how far away all of them were: his focus needed to be on reaching the bleachers before any of the wolves were able to catch up.

It was a doomed hope from the start.

Stiles was only three-quarters of the way towards the bleachers when a heavy weight collided with his shoulders, knocking the teen down with enough force that the amber-eyed boy rolled—over and over and over again—as momentum and force knocked the breath out of him. Stiles sobbed for breath, senses going hyper aware as his fingers curled in the damp grass beneath his body.

“No, no, no, _no, no, no, nononononono_ ,” the sixteen year-old begged, scrabbling for purchase even as he felt teeth lock into the material of his sweats and began to drag him backwards. (Would have thought that particular behavior odd, would have wondered why the rest of the pack didn’t just descend on him once Stiles hit the ground: but terror had her clutches buried deep within the teen’s hindbrain, and all Stiles could focus upon was the marrow-deep _need to run_.)

The wolf’s hold on him was unrelenting, and Stiles dug deep furrows in the lacrosse field as it continued dragging him backwards, black shadows swarming at the corner of the teen’s vision as the rest of the pack began to circle around their fellow member and the prey that it had brought down. Here, surrounded by the thick musk of wolf and the heat of too many bodies pressed too close to him, Stiles saw that the wolves’ eyes flashed blue and gold—metallic shades gleaming impossible colors in the late morning light.

 _They’re not actual **wolves** ,_ Stiles realized with a dawning sort of horror.

He screamed out in both fear and fury, feet kicking towards the wolf that still held him captive. His shoe made a solid connection with the creature’s face, and the hit resulted in a telling _crunch_ of bone caving beneath his strike, accompanied with a yelp of pain and the sudden release of his leg. The teen flailed out, trying to make the others keep their distance in whatever way possible, and quickly pushed himself to standing: he looked around, eyes far too wide with terror, and _knew_ what sort of end awaited him at the realization that the pack of—of wolves, of something different, of whatever they truly were—had him completely surrounded.

“ _No!_ ” Stiles yelled at the creatures, rage sparking to life within his chest. “ _No!_ I won’t _let you!_ ” –the lingering sense of unease had never once left the teen, had only deepened and turned richer and thicker with the taste of bitterness along the back of his throat: Stiles didn’t know what these _things_ wanted with him, but instinct prodded at him and dipped a nod towards that pervasive feeling.

Too many questions, too many puzzle pieces: all parts to a chess game he didn’t yet know how to play, but damned if Stiles was willing to give it all up and end here.

“ _ **NO!**_ ” the teen yelled once more, defiant in the face of the danger that surrounded him, screaming out his terror to the sky even as one of the other creatures crouched down low before leaping towards the vulnerable line of Stiles’ back. The boy flinched and shifted, about to turn to try and find _some_ way to attempt to block the oncoming attack—

There was a _roar_ that came, deep enough to tremble the earth beneath Stiles’ feet, shaking the bones within him and leaving a encompassing ringing once it finally faded away—and another black blur, this one larger than all of the others, collided with the wolf-creature mid-leap and sent both forms tumbling down and upon the grass, end over end in a mix of fur and fang and claw.

Once the two figures broke apart, Stiles was able to see that it was another wolf, though it was as different from the others as night was from day. This one was larger than the rest: its head alone would have easy reached the line of the teen’s shoulder; it was broad and heavily muscled, fur a true black—painted in shades of midnight and the spaces between the stars—and the creature’s eyes glowed _crimson_ in a truly terrifying threat.

It snarled at the others, shifting to settle its bulk beneath Stiles and the pack at large: lips curled back, the creature bared fangs that gleamed bone-pale in the morning light and threatened death to any that would attempt to make their way closer.

 _What the hell is going on??_ the teen thought to himself, panting softly as he wrapped his arms around the vulnerable expanse of his belly, shuddering in reaction as more adrenaline flooded his system and flight/fight corded muscles tight in expectation, waiting for which way Stiles would end up moving: closer or further away, though the lizard hindbrain that was still so much apart of humanity’s development hissed at him in warning—survival above anything else.

The dark haired boy shifted, and the rest of the wolf-creatures settled greedy, knowing gazes upon his form.

If anything, that shift in attention made the larger creature growl, the sound dark in its promise of death and retribution even as it drew its smaller kin’s attention back to it: a line in the sand had been drawn, and it was obvious that it was challenging the others in their desire to cross it—to pick up the metaphorical gauntlet thrown and see how they fared against the specter of Death that currently stared them all down.

Some of the creatures slinked away, not willing to offer up challenge. The others, however, doubled-up to stand shoulder to shoulder, gazes flaring blue and gold as the newcomer crouched down in wait for the attack that would soon enough be coming.

The creature shifted for just a moment, tilting its head to glance over one thickly muscled shoulder, and it snarled at Stiles; the teen flinched, taking a step back from that bloody gaze, and perhaps it was the panic or fear or sensory overload but—for just a moment—the teen could have sworn that he heard _words_ in those echoing acoustics, soundwaves low enough to throb and settle within the expanse of the teen’s ribcage. **::Run. Run now!::**

Whether it was a figment of his imagination or not, Stiles wasn’t willing to stay and investigate, not with the threat of death so close to him: he took the creature’s order to heart and turned on his heel, muscles bunch in preparation for flight, fully intending on running for all that he was worth towards the bleachers.

Snarls and howls of pain filled the air just behind the teen, and he could hear the telling thuds of bodies striking against one another as the vast majority of them attempted to go through the larger wolf to reach their fleeing prey, only seeing the newcomer as a sort of obstacle—one to rip to shreds to reach their ultimate goal.

_I need to live. I need to survive. I can’t do this to my dad--_

There was an agonized howl, deeper than all of the others, and Stiles abruptly turned to see that the rest of the pack had banded together to take down the interloper: teeth were buried in limbs, tackling the larger wolf and forcing it to the ground even as others tore and dug into the newly vulnerable flesh, intending on causing as much pain as possible before the crimson-eyed creature’s death. There was a knowing sort of cruelty to the creatures’ actions, one that spoke of experience and knowledge of what it was that they were truly doing—exposure and the joy in the spilling of blood, of tearing of skin and muscle and bone. There was nothing natural and _earthly_ in this particular brand of sadism--and as one of the creatures’ muzzles gripped at the larger wolf’s throat, all Stiles could think of was how this red-eyed wolf was willing to stand between him and the others, was willing to fight and to bleed and perhaps even die to ensure that the teen remained safe and was able to get away.

And Stiles was afraid—so fucking afraid, terror a chunk of ice lodged right next to his heart—but this was the type of selfless courage that he saw echoed in the actions of his father’s deputies day after day after day: men who were willing to lay down their lives to keep their people safe, and Stiles had always known that his father would never once turn away, refuse his own assistance, at that particular brand of _knowing_ , of duty and diligence and love for others.

He ignored the tears that soaked his cheeks—fear and empathy and stress and pain—and went _back_ to the fight. Knowing that there was an almost pre-destined conclusion that Stiles was going to die by refusing to take the advantage granted to him to run away, to instead move _towards_ the danger promised to him… the ember that had flickered to life within his soul as midnight struck once again Sparked and grew larger—and larger still—until everything that Stiles knew and understood became fueled by that heat, that light—an edge of the Divine that kissed his rage with a touch of _Wrath_ , the power and the desire both to bring hell to the earth at large as fury rained down and thunder filled the sky. Stiles clutched at that encompassing feeling, yanked it down and buried his fingers deep within the golden-tinged power, and finally allowed a single command to part the air like a thunderclap:

“אני מורה לך לעצור!”

_I order you to **stop**!_

The world came to a standstill—

And then suddenly sped up, everything blurring into a technicolor palette, vibrantly rich even as color bled into another, spreading out to encompass the entirety around them all before narrowing abruptly, zeroing in on the pack and the victim that lay bleeding at their center. Air pressure built up as gravity went heavy and thick within the field, and then—within seconds— _popped_ in an audible release of pressure, shockwave blasting outwards from the epicenter of Stiles’ strike. The creatures were picked up in the blast, thrown through the air as their bodies were tossed and twisted to and fro, puppets to the teen’s release of power.

When they landed, none of the wolves got up again.

Bodies lay scattered upon the grass, unmoving and too still.

The sight before him made the breath in Stiles’ lungs leave in one great _whoosh_ , and the teen pointedly avoided glancing over at the others’ bodies even as he made his way towards the creature that had stood between him and what would have been certain death. The red-eyed wolf was still breathing, chest lifting and falling laboriously—slow but steady enough to reassure the amber-eyed teen that the creature would live to see another day.

Regardless of the fact that the other creatures had been banished away or not, it still went without saying that, while unconscious, this particular canine was vulnerable to any future attacks: the fact that it had saved Stiles when it had no obligation to do so settled a heavy sort of weight within his chest, dragging him down and under—setting alight an unstated obligation and knowledge that this creature was the only reason why Stiles was relatively unharmed and safe when things could have otherwise gone… badly. Very badly. And now this wolf was injured in the teen’s defense, bleeding sluggishly onto the grass beneath its fur-clad body.

Stiles knew that he couldn’t leave it behind, open to any future attacks.

Still: the creature was large, almost grotesquely so in comparison to Stiles himself and the other wolves, and the thought of somehow managing to drag it back to the parking lot, into his Jeep, and up the stairs of his home so that he could tend to its wounds… was not a pleasant one.

The boy groaned to himself, already resigned to the fact that this was going to suck in so many ways, and finally knelt next to the unconscious body before shifting the heavy, deadweight bulk into a fireman’s carry across Stiles’ shoulders. The teen grunted as he finally managed to stand, weaving back and forth as he attempted to gain his footing, and eventually took the first of many steps forward—one by one, grabbing his gear along the way, and determinedly heading towards the parking lot that wasn’t _that_ far away.

Coach had need talking about adding more weights to their training, right…? So Stiles was just getting ahead of the game in this particular instance.

Despite the plethora of pep-talks that Stiles kept up in a constant, regular, internal monologue as he crossed the field and the asphalt just beyond it, the sixteen year-old still gave a curse of relief when he and his silent passenger finally made it to the teen’s Jeep: groaning, deep and satisfied, as he opened the back door to the car and carefully slid the blood-covered wolf from his shoulders to the floorboard beyond. The open space was a small one and the fit was tight—but still large enough that Stiles was able to get the wolf comfortably situated and the door closed again.

 _I’m going crazy,_ Stiles murmured silently to himself as he slipped into the driver’s seat and started up the old car. He took a moment to himself, eyes closing tight and breathing deep—desperately reaching for some sort of solid ground to stand on in the insanity that had overtaken his life in the past… half an hour? If that? _I’m going crazy and the world’s diving headlong into it with me, too._

In the review mirror, Stiles could see the bulky outline of the wolf’s fur-covered form, torso rising and falling with each and every breath.

_Crazy, crazy, crazy._

The words repeated, over and over again in Stiles’ mind, even as he pulled out of the school’s parking lot, became a litany chant to time the turning of the Jeep’s wheels to, patterned itself into a rhythm as he waited at a stoplight and counted down to when the light turned from red to green: a structure to somehow number the passing of time until the teen was finally able to pull into his house’s garage.

Opening the back door once more and grimacing at the thought of having to lug who-knows-how-many-pounds up the staircase and into his bedroom, Stiles grimaced and mumbled, “Just another set of hell-on-earth squats that Coach will eventually be having us do.” to himself even as he again shifted the wolf’s muscled bulk over his shoulders and carefully straightened, particular attention paid to knees and spine.

“One step at a time,” Stiles promised himself, breathing deep and trying to ignore the tang of copper at the back of his throat.

Grateful now for the fact that his dad had pulled a shift on his birthday, guaranteed that the house would be empty of anyone else’s presence, Stiles carefully carried his newest cargo through the garage and kitchen immediately beyond it, made his way through the living room—steps quick enough in an attempt to avoid any blood dripping onto the carpet—and headed up the stairs, one step at a time as he had originally pep-talked to himself. The last was a particular sort of torture, thighs straining as the teen slowly managed to ascend the staircase.

There was no other choice but to do it, however, so Stiles buckled down and ensured that he made his way up the stairs: knowing, too, that his endgoal was finally now in sight.

Minutes later, sweaty but accomplished, the teen carefully eased his heavy, furry _guest_ from his shoulders and onto the rug parallel to his bed, trying his best not to jostle any injuries that the wolf had sustained—though knowing, too, that that was a futile hope. (Distantly crossed his fingers, too, that the blood wouldn’t soak through the rug and onto the carpet below because _that_ was certainly not a conversation that Stiles wanted to have with the Sheriff. _Ever._ )

Once limbs were as comfortably arranged as Stiles could make them and double-checking that the wolf was still steadily breathing, the sixteen year-old hurried towards the bathroom just across the hall, falling to his knees to dig quickly at the various paraphernalia that had collected over the years in the cupboard beneath the sink—expired shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and toothpaste going flying over a shoulder as Stiles dug deeper for the first aid kit that had once been a regular friend when the teen was younger and even more accident prone.

“Aha! There you are,” he muttered to himself as Stiles’ fingers brushed against familiar black nylon fabric. The dark-haired boy dragged it out from the depths of the cupboard, giving it a quick glance-over to make sure that everything was still where it was supposed to be: hydrogen peroxide, gauze, butterfly bandages, Neosporin cream, a small kit for stitches ( _that_ , Stiles had no intention of touching; passed out and unconscious wasn’t a good look on him).

First aid kit pressed snugly to his chest with one arm while his free hand haphazardly shoved everything back under the sink, Stiles clutched at the well-stocked bag like it was some sort of safety blanket—honestly, not that far off of an assessment considering how off-kilter he currently felt—and was soon enough hurrying back to his room to see to the wolf’s injuries while it was still knocked out from its own fight.

Stiles was greeted with the sight of a man, unfairly gorgeous and painted in stark shades of starlight and moonshadow, standing in front of the teen’s closet’s mirror, what looked like a leather vest tugged aside so that the stranger could inspect a truly impressive set of teeth marks pressed deep into his muscled side.

“ _Jesus!_ ” the teen yelped, started at the man’s sudden appearance. The first aid kit tumbled down from Stiles’ grip, and the boy took a step back and out of his room-- _because this should not be happening._ Stiles had dumped a half-dead wolf on his bedroom’s rug. He was _not_ supposed to come back and stumble upon the fact that there was no longer any wolf—a glance to his rug confirmed that particular fact—and had instead been swapped out by a man, perhaps human but most likely not considering how Stiles’ day had been going thus far, carefully inspecting a variety of wounds upon his person that the injured wolf, too, had been sporting.

As crazy as the conclusion Stiles had to reach seemed to be-- _crazy crazy crazy_ \--the only logical explanation was that the man used to be the wolf and was now… not.

The look that the not-wolf man tossed to Stiles over the curve of his shoulder was the epitome of unimpressed, but perhaps that also had something to do with the fact that the teen was currently sprawled on the carpet of the hallway after tripping over his own feet—tumbling down to the ground after the first aid kid went flying into parts unknown, leaving the boy to stare at the stranger with too-wide eyes.

And perhaps that particular glance shouldn’t have that the reaction that it had with Stiles, but the amber-eyed teen had dealt with derision and scoffing, words layered with mocking and contempt, for _years_ : it had become enough that the glances and comments typically caused Stiles to bristle in turn, and nothing changed in this particular instance, either. Chin tilting upwards to meet the other’s green-flecked gaze in his bedroom’s mirror, the boy ignored the flush of embarrassment that still tinged his cheeks pink and instead flatly met the stranger’s eyes challengingly. “Who the hell are _you_??” Stiles snapped out, adding in a pointing finger for last-minute emphasis of his question.

To add insult to injury, the inquiry just garnered Stiles an eyeroll in turn as the stranger went back to carefully inspecting his injuries. “You’re already aware of who I am,” the man answered, voice mid-toned—not at all gruff or growling, the way that Stiles half expected considering the fact that the man used to be a wolf and, furthermore, considering his current rough appearance.

The dismissive nature of the response, however, just had the teen’s eyes narrowing, irritation sparking considering the fact that, true enough, the wolf had initially stepped between him and danger—but so, too, Stiles hadn’t left him behind when the chance presented itself to the teen. Gratitude was perhaps a foreign concept to the stranger, but the teen would have appreciated it if he at least answered the boy’s question with even a hint of seriousness. 

“Uh, _no_ , dude,” Stiles corrected, brows furrowing in an obvious show of irritation. “I have an idea of _what_ you _were_ \--and, even then, the best guess would have been ‘wolf-creature,’ though I suppose ‘werewolf’ is now readily in the running, too. But my question specifically asked _who_ you are. Ergo, a name would be appreciated because otherwise I’m taking a page out of Hades’ book and calling you ‘Spot.’ ‘Miguel’ seems like a nice enough option, too. Either-or.”

The words came tumbling out of Stiles’ mouth end over end, an unconscious waterfall of syllables and language: so much of what the teen typically said was nonsense rambling, a distraction put up to keep others’ attention away from everything that continued to go _un_ said, and the dissatisfied slant of the stranger’s mouth gave proof that, no matter the species (race?), the amber-eyed teen was very, very good at offering up that specific distraction as words filled the air.

Even as he spoke, the boy was picking up the first aid kit and making his way back into his bedroom with a bravado that was ninety percent feigned and ten percent annoyance, immediately slapping away the older man’s hands so that he could inspect the injury for himself (ignoring, as well, the rather taken aback expression that that action garnered in turn). Moments later, the kit was spread open on his desk and Stiles began rummaging through the supplies for the hydrogen peroxide—figuring that first cleaning the wound was a good step in this entire process.  
“…my name is Derek,” the man eventually answered, watching Stiles dab absently at the wound over a hip with one chemical-soaked cotton ball, his own expression a complicated mixture of emotions. “And I am not a Faoladh—a _werewolf_ , as you said.”

Amber eyes flickered upwards just briefly, there and gone again, and Stiles internally marveled at the fact that within a single morning his life had somehow twisted leftways and upside down enough that someone stating that they weren’t a _werewolf_ actually, somehow, made sense. ( _Crazy, crazy, crazy, everything is so fucking crazy_ , his mind whispered, words tinged with desperation and a frantic wish that this was nothing more than an ongoing, too-real dream.) Still: the explanation that Derek offered up wasn’t much of one, though it was a start in the right direction.

Stiles cleared his throat, nervous and uncertain and wishing, so very much, that this be only a dream that he’d eventually wake up from. “If not a… a _Faoladh_ , then what are you? Derek.”

The pseudo-man continued to watch as the teen cleaned and bandaged his wound before moving to the next, gestures meticulous and thorough in the way that spoke of at least _some_ touch of healing—in Stiles’ case, both a combination of the fact that he had always been accident prone and curious, full of questions, whenever an adult arrived to patch him back up, as well as Melissa’s own influence upon his caretaking skillset.

Allowing the silence to drag out between them both for just a bit longer, Derek eventually stirred as Stiles began working on another injury—this one high upon his bicep—and provided the teen with his answer. “I’m a Cŵn Annwn. Once upon a time ago—a lifetime ago—I was amongst the Hounds that heralded the Wild Hunt.”

The comment was enough to bring the teen’s hands to a standstill, and Stiles stared down at the man’s—the fae’s?—wounds, eyes blank as thoughts circled and twisted ‘round one another, burying themselves deep within the shadowed recesses of Stiles’ mind, pieces shifting across a self-imposed chessboard as the boy considered and weighed just what that meant.

Eventually, however, Stiles once more reached out and resumed his careful administrations—nearly done, now, with patching the other up. “Were the other… wolves… the ones that originally attacked… were they also _Cŵn Annwn_?” the amber-eyed boy asked, stumbling over the unfamiliar, foreign words.

“ **No** ,” Derek snapped immediately in answer, denial low and guttural enough that it might as well have been a snarl, rumbling up from the hazel-eyed man’s chest and vibrating through the enclosed air of the teen’s bedroom. For once in his life, Stiles wisely didn’t ask for a point of clarification.

The rest of the time was spent in careful, fragile silence, and Stiles made sure that he didn’t look up to meet the other’s gaze, afraid of what he’d see in Derek’s eyes after such a violent outburst. His resulting motions were quick and efficient, no words left to distract him from his self-imposed task, and it wasn’t much long after that Stiles finally stepped away and tossed his gloves into the trashcan by his desk, scrubbing down his hands and any bared skin with an alcohol wipe to ensure that he got rid of any lingering streaks of Derek’s blood.

Clean now, Stiles took a deep breath and attempted to push away the remnants of fear and stress-- _this is all so crazy; how is this happening to me??_ \--and tilted his chin upwards to once more levelly meet the older man’s gaze. “Why did you save me, Derek?” the teen asked, muscle ticking along the edge of his pale jawline.

Derek finished righting his clothing after a brief inspection of the work that Stiles had done, settling shirt and weapons both until the Cŵn Annwn looked like some sort of poster child for a Medieval Times-themed romance novel or an original Game of Thrones character, and for perhaps the first time since Derek’s appearance, Stiles realized: _This man is **dangerous**._

It didn’t matter that Derek had initially saved him, didn’t matter that the other had gotten hurt in doing so—had needed Stiles’ own help in patching himself up and leaving the field to go somewhere relatively safer. With injuries tended to and the original threat no longer a concern at this particular moment in time: that particular fact couldn’t be made any clearer than this specific moment in time.

And while Stiles appreciated the fact that Derek had saved him from a rather bloody and gruesome fate—and no parent should have to come across their child’s body, and the fact that it had come close to that result would most likely haunt Stiles for weeks, months, perhaps even years to come—but the teen was also jaded enough to realize that the other man hadn’t done it for free. An eye for an eye, and all the Cŵn Annwn had to do was actually admit aloud what it was that he wanted from the amber-eyed teen.

(An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind—but it kept things on an even keel, as well.)

Something firmed in Derek’s gaze at Stiles’ question, green going dark and eyes going flinty and hard: again, the warrior that he was stepped forward, any sort of camaraderie that the teen had perhaps felt with him—small portions though it may have been—was there and gone again, and all that was left was… this. A crimson-eyed man, bloody from battle, pushing that first piece across the board.

“You’re a Child of Prophecy,” the Cŵn Annwn stated, gaze intent as it settled upon Stiles.

And Stiles? Stiles blinked, opened his mouth to reply, shut it, and blinked again. Eventually, thoughts resettling and brain rebooting, the teen stepped forward and poked Derek in the middle of his chest while keeping his reply flat and unamused: “ **No.** ”

“…no?”

“ _No_ ,” Stiles repeated, jittery for all that he tried to keep his voice firm and unrelenting in the face of Derek’s distant amusement. “No, I am _not_ fucking Harry Potter or Naruto Uzumaki or Arthur Pendragon or some type of Hercules figure or even freaking _Anakin Skywalker_ \-- ** _no_**.”

The Cŵn Annwn shifted his stance at that flat-out denial from the teenager, moving to lean a hip against the edge of Stiles’ desk even as his own gaze went distant and harsh, amusement bleeding away in a slow but steady trickle until all that was left was a creature that was alien, foreign and lacking a familiar sort of humanity that the boy so regularly saw each and every time he lifted his gaze to meet his eyes in the mirror.

“The funny thing about prophecies, boy,” Derek began, voice rumbling and quiet in its open threat—a promise latent in each and every word stated between them both, “is that you can deny your involvement in them all you want. One day, eventually—no matter how hard you try or how far you run—it’ll still catch up to you. And there will be no denying things then.”

Stiles’ mouth twisted at that and he began putting everything back into the first aid kit with rough, angry gestures, refusing to meet Derek’s flat gaze even as the teen’s gestures held the barest taste of violence and pain, denial still on the forefront of his mind—because the amber-eyed boy had read stacks upon stacks of books, was a perfect fount of pop culture trivia taken from hours of watching movies and shows, dove headfirst into Wiki-binges that he didn’t bother surfacing from for hours, sometimes days later. 

The point was: Stiles was well-versed in what happened to those that Fate turned her attention to—knew that the heroes of such tales were oftentimes buried beneath grief, the butt of every cosmic joke as the Higher Powers That Be took everything that mattered to them until all that was left was the barest minimum to cling to and a ocean’s worth of ash to sustain them. And Stiles… didn’t want that. Couldn’t do that to his father. _Wouldn’t_ do that to his dad, not after everything that John Stilinski had gone through—and the fact that Stiles _still_ occasionally found hidden, empty whiskey bottles in the trash bins outside.

Refusing to lift his chin to meet Derek’s eyes, Stiles quietly snapped out, “Well, personally, I’m a fan of ignoring a problem until eventually it just goes away.” as he jerked the zipper to seal the first aid kit closed again. Finished with packing the kit up once more, he picked up the heavy bag and headed out of his bedroom to the bathroom, returning the kit beneath the kit to use again on a future day.

When Stiles returned to his room, Derek was gone.

The teen let out a shaky breath, finally allowing his legs to give out beneath him as he slid down the wall to spill onto the carpet beneath him: he inhaled, exhaled, inhaled again (steady and constant like the beating of his heart, frantic though it currently was)—and brought his hands up to cover his face, fighting against the tears that pricked at the corners of his eyes.

“ _Fuck._ ”

+

**_Hey, kiddo. Up for having your birthday dinner at Delilah’s tonight?_ **

Stiles squinted down at the text from his dad, weighing whether or not he was up for dinner out—still sore from the night before, still shaky from the attack at the lacrosse field and the flare of _something_ that had come as a result of him going back to help Derek. But… it was his birthday and his dad wanted to take time out of his shift to have dinner with Stiles.

The teen’s finger’s flew over the phone’s touchscreen as Stiles sent off his reply: **_Delilah’s…? Sounds like a trap._**

John’s reply was almost immediate—which meant that it must be a slow period of time at the department… or his dad was _really_ pushing for that specific diner. Which, yeah. Stiles totally called it. Trap. **_Well, I know how much you like the curly fries there._**

“Bingo,” the amber-eyed teen mumbled to himself, snorting in amusement. **_Yup. Also know how much you like the pie there, too, Daddy-o. Don’t think I won’t be keeping my eye on you. (ಠ.ಠ)_**

Stiles’ dad’s reply was slower than the one previous, and the teen smirked, aware that the Sheriff was most likely feeling things out—seeing just how much he could get away with while claiming that it was for his son’s birthday and, thus, in celebration of a momentous event in his child’s life. **_My kid turns sixteen only once in his life, though. I think that calls for a two-slice dessert in celebration._**

The sixteen year-old in question just snorted in amusement at that particular claim, rolling over onto his belly to hide the sharp curve of a smirk in his pillow even as he tap-tap-tapped out a response to his dad. **_One-slice dessert. Depending on how much green is on your main dish’s plate (and how much of it you ACTUALLY eat), I miiiiiight be talked into letting you get chocolate silk for that one-slice._**

**_I think it’s hilarious that the deputies think that I’m the one who brings home the bacon in this household._ **

The smirk broadened at that, layering itself with mischief, and Stiles shot off his own reply to that particular comment: **_You DO, Pops. As long as it’s tofu bacon or turkey bacon. Anything else is considered contraband._**

**_:(_ **  
**_See you at 1730, kiddo?_ **

Stiles shot a quick glance at the time displayed on his phone, calculating how long it would take to snag another shower, hot water hopefully working the last of his kinks out of his limbs, before heading off to the diner off of Main. Figuring that he was still in the green, the sixteen year-old quickly typed out **_WILCO. d(ﾟｰﾟ@)_** before rolling off of his bed to begin gathering together a new set of clothes to change into—hopefully this particular set would sustain less damage than his earlier favorite pair of sweats had to deal with.

**_Don’t know why you can’t just use the phone’s already set Eggos or whatever you kids call ‘em._ **

**_Aesthetic. These are cuter. See you in a bit, Daddy-o._ **

With arrangements wrapped up and a meal soon to be enjoyed with his dad, Stiles booked it to the bathroom and pushed the hot water knob as high as it would go, immediately ducking under the steaming water: despite the thickness of the air, how the steam settled in his lungs, the teen finally felt as if he could _breathe_ \--lungs expanding fully for the first time that day, stress sloughing away like an unnecessary layer of skin as muscles began to unclench and unwind.

_Breathe. Just breathe._

Stiles inhaled, took the moment to enjoy the singular moment in what had otherwise been a shitstorm of a day, turned his face up to the spray—and then eventually let it all go as he turned off the shower, stepping out of the stall and feeling _cleaner_ than he had in hours. Better. More centered.

Changing and making an idle note to start working on laundry when he got back home from dinner, Stiles grabbed Roscoe’s keys and tripped his way down the staircase and to the garage where he had left the Jeep, hidden away from prying, neighborly (and well-meaning) eyes as he dragged Derek’s then-furry form out of the back area of the car.

With curly fries, pie, and comfort food to soon look forward to, Stiles pulled out onto the street and began to head towards the downtown area of Beacon Hills, small as that district may have actually been. The streets were calmer than earlier that morning—that dizzying sense of _wrongness_ had faded away as the day wore on, and the heavy weight of unease was all but dissipated into tattered shadows beneath the cheerfully bright April sun. As the teen continued to make his way through Beacon Hills proper, turning out onto the road that cut through the preserve to shave a couple more minutes off of the drive, Stiles allowed his fingers to unclench from their chokehold on the steering wheel: relieved to the point that his breath stuttered out on his next exhale.

_Crazy, crazy, crazy. Just a crazy waking nightmare. Not real. It’s done and over with. I’m awake now, everything is better—just breathe, Stiles. You’re good. Just breathe._

In the middle of the boy’s next inhale-exhale, Stiles caught a blur of motion from the corner of his eyes—grayscaled with hints of mossy green—and the teen jerked in surprise, head turning immediately to catch sight of _whatever_ it was. Before the amber-eyed boy could actually see, however, a roar cracked the air and ripped it in two—Stiles’ ears immediately began bleeding, sticky wetness coating the bend of his throat—and that very same _something_ slammed into the side of the Jeep to send it spinning, flipping through the end and moving end over end, off of the road.

Stiles’ world went black and silent.


	2. Chapter 2

** PART II. **

_I saw it in your eyes_  
 _I saw the creature deep inside_  
 _You opened up your cage_  
 _Pathetic insect_  
 _Drawn to flame_  
 _I'm falling apart_  
 _Inside your holographic heart_  
 _Lost souls dancing_  
 _And now the lie's collapsing_  
[“Bringing It Down”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZcuRa8Z4fU) – Starset

+

Consciousness returned to Stiles in an abrupt surge of awareness, a tidal wave of thoughts and perceptions crashing upon the shoreline that made up the bridge between waking and dreams: a void of self where the teen drifted, formless and aimless until finally brushing up against that barrier. With that first touch, the ember buried deep within his chest sparking to life, Stiles’ lashes lifted and the amber-eyed teen stared up at the ceiling above his bed.

Awareness continued to slowly drift to the foreground of his mind as small things of note began to occur to him: the dryness of his throat, parched with the lack of water; the scent of lavender and sage, thick enough to be cloying in the still air of the room; the scratchiness of the bed linens—not cotton or polyester or anything else he was passing familiar with, and perhaps it was that particular sensory input, touch, that coaxed the confusion and fear from where they slumbered; sight was next, quiet and desperate in its rejection of what _was_ as Stiles stared up at carefully fitted stone.

This was not the Beacon Hills’ Memorial Hospital.

The teen shivered, fingers curling in the rough material of his blankets-- _Linen_ , Stiles suddenly realized, _it’s linen._ \--as he took a moment to close his eyes, groping for some sort of composure that he knew wouldn’t come soon or easily even as the boy cautiously prodded at his memory to see what it was that he last remembered.

_Waking up. My birthday. Lacrosse field. Cŵn Annwn. Derek. He disappeared. Netflix. Texts from Dad. Heading out to join him for dinner,_ the sixteen year-old listed silently to himself, fingers never once unclenching from their death grip upon the sheets. _Then… attacked. By something—couldn’t get a good look at it. Large. Camo shades._

Stiles remembered his Jeep getting hit, remembered the pain of being slammed around the cabin like a doll cut from its strings, fumbling for some sort of way to brace itself even as it continued to go end over end; a secondary thought, but the teen could only be grateful of the fact that he always drove with his seatbelt—perhaps it was the only reason why he was still alive right now.

Releasing the breath from his lungs in a quiet exhale, Stiles finally opened his eyes once more to stare up at the flagstone ceiling, trying to figure out how it was possible to go from Point A to Point B… wherever this _Point B_ was. Certainly not in Kansas and Stiles _definitely_ didn’t remember seeing a tornado, though whatever it was that had hit Roscoe had felt more like a semi truck than anything else.

Cautiously, moving carefully to avoid jarring any new potential wounds, Stiles began to push himself upright while cataloguing his injuries as he did so: an overall ache that permeated all of his body, the type of soreness that would probably be lasting for weeks to come—but, as the teen consoled himself frankly enough, better to be sore than _dead_. Each small movement accompanied its expected twinge and, as Stiles scooted himself upright, he discovered all of the abrasions, the cuts and bruises and scrapes that were to be expected from a bad car accident.

It could have been worse, the teen reminded himself as he inspected a particularly ugly road rash that ran along the outside of his arm. Considering what happened… it could have been _a lot_ worse.

As the whiskey-eyed sixteen year was taking inventory, the door to his makeshift hospital room eased open and Stiles lifted his gaze to see—a goddess, strawberry blonde hair falling in graceful waves over the milky-pale curve of a shoulder, hazel eyes too large and still accenting the delicate lines of her face—

And Stiles blinked, blinked again, and something _snapped_ within reality’s confines, details and perceptions reorienting and shifting from Fae-touched to _truth_ \--and instead of a springtime goddess, colors touched with moss and the barest hint of gold, there stood a girl: still lovely, but not supernaturally so—and eerie all that same, now painted in graveyard shades while a skull’s rictus grin, nightmarishly cheerful, hovered faintly over her features.

“That was a glamour,” Stiles said, voice tight with shock and adrenaline. Too many hours on a Wikibinge, burrowing deeper and deeper through the various pits of information that the internet had to offer—one particular tangent had led the teen through mythological and folkloric informational overload, though Stiles had still managed to go from link to link to link, soaking in the texts provided to him like a sponge. And though there had been a variety of definitions of what a _glamour_ truly was… at the heart of it had stood this particular meaning: a veil donned to hide true appearance and true nature.

The Fae stilled, body going unnaturally quiet—expression smoothing over like marble, nothing more than a statue’s surface—and the teenager suddenly felt so much like a bug being inspected under a microscope, alien intelligence inspecting and categorizing him until that foreign presence finally found itself glutted on all of the little details it had poked and prodded for.

Slowly, curl coming at a wickedly sharp edge to the point that the hairs on the back of Stiles’ neck abruptly stood on end, the woman smiled. “Not many remember the tales told of the Daoine Sídhe.”

Stiles swallowed and hid his hands beneath the heavy weight of his blanket, never once looking away from the woman’s hazel gaze—not even as ghosts bled across iris and pupil both, clouding her gaze in tarnished silver, and a faint voice whispered against the delicate curve of the boy’s ear: _Banshee… she’s a banshee._

“I get bored easily and ended up taking one too many Redbulls and Adderall one night. Didn’t get much sleep, but I ended up reading a lot,” the teen explained as the young woman tilted her head in inquiry, attention too dangerous sharp upon him. “Hope you don’t get offended by the next question, but… uh. Which court am I currently a _guest_ of?”

The banshee laughed at the boy’s question, the sound brittle and crackling, echoing through the air like the cracking of bones despite the genuine sort of mirth that she displayed at Stiles’ inquiry. “You’re currently being seen to by a bean sídhe and was saved by a Cŵn Annwn—one of the Hounds of the Wild Hunt. You seem smart enough to put two and two together.”

Shock crashed over Stiles in a maelstrom’s worth of force, threatening to drag him down even as the sound in his ears went tinny—ringing with disbelief and the heartfelt desire to _deny_ what was obviously before him—and the teen felt an arctic chill down to his very _bones_ as terror swallowed him whole.

Banshee - Cŵn Annwn – the Wild Hunt, the Sluagh?

Yes, Stiles _was_ smart enough to put two and two together, particularly when the answer was nearly screaming at him in the face, obvious when all of the clues had been laid out and when the amber-eyed teen was finally given the full pictures.

He was amongst the Unseelie Court.

The boy remained silent even while the banshee smiled knowingly at him and carefully tended to his wounds.

+

It was quite some time later, but Stiles eventually managed to fall asleep after the banshee had left—“You may call me Lydia.” . “Is that actually your real name?” . “Is **Stiles** _yours_?” . “…touché.”—aches slowly managing to ease due to whatever poultice she had covered the wounds with; despite the lingering, hindbrain fear that kept him on edge with the knowledge that he was somewhere that he couldn’t ever view as anything close to being _safe_ , exhaustion had claimed a more prevalent hold upon him, and the teen let unconsciousness once more strike its hold on him to drag him down and under and back into the now-welcome void.

Stiles drifted, untethered and without foundation, and when he opened his eyes again some time later—unknowable and uncountable with the lack of _anything_ that would let him know just how much time had passed—it was to the fresh scent of baked bread and roasted meat. Turning his head to the side, the teen’s mouth watered at the sight that welcomed him and his stomach growled in pointed demand.

Difficult to do so, especially when it felt like his stomach was eating itself from the inside out, Stiles ignored the offerings that had been obviously set out for him; perhaps the platter had been a test or perhaps his current hosts didn’t realize just _how much_ Stiles tended to read—particularly at three a.m. on a school night—but the teen had come across far too many stories of the Fae and what happened when someone was unlucky enough to eat what was offered to them.

(Everything else tasting like soot in their mouths, refusing to eat mortal food until finally wasting away to dust and ash.)

The sixteen year-old once again carefully pushed himself upright, relieved when the soreness that he had last woken up to was finally gone and Stiles could move as he hadn’t been able to for… days? Perhaps? Regardless, he eased out from beneath the blankets that had been covering him and reached for the apparent pile of clothing that had been set out for him next to the food. Dressing was a quick affair—the teen had only been given a pair of cotton pants and a tunic—and, no longer afraid of flashing any future visitors, he cautiously approached the door to his bedroom.

Would it be locked?  
Unlocked?

Not knowing which option would be preferable at this particular point in time--

Twisting the handle, admittedly surprised when it actually turned, Stiles cautiously stuck his head out of the crack that he had bared, taking a quick peek to see what awaited him outside. At first sight, all the teen saw was more stone, a hallway that stretched out far in either direction, and scones filled with the flickering light of fire that would help light the way.

The air seemed to blur just next to the teen, and Stiles jumped in surprise as a voice broke through the silence of the corridor, startlingly sharp in the quiet that had seemed to loom over the space, thick and as heavy as wool.

“Oh, good. You’re finally awake again.”

Stiles squawked in surprise and jerked backwards, tripping over his feet to go tumbling to the ground. Eyes wide in startled fear, the sixteen year-old lifted his gaze to meet amused, glacial blue. The man who had somehow managed to step out of nothingness-- _Magic: how is this now apparently my **life**._ \--offered a sly curl of a smirk, smile sharply framed by the neat shape of a goatee, and leaned an arm against the frame of Stiles’ door, shifting his weight to settle comfortably even as the stranger glanced over the teen.

“Jumpy?” the man asked, amusement deepening even further.

“Maybe I would be less so if you hadn’t popped up out of nowhere. The hallway _had_ been empty when I originally looked around,” Stiles shot back, scowling up at the newcomer—unsettled, too, from the fact that he’d been off-balance and made to stand on the wrong foot, fumbling for some sort of foundation even while acknowledging to himself that there was no safe ground to be found. Not if his original guess was true and he had somehow found himself in the Unseelie Court’s territory.

“A true enough statement. But where would be the fun in that?” came the answer to the teen’s pointed accusation, and Stiles couldn’t find it in himself to argue since it was obvious that it would get him nowhere. Still, enemy territory or not, the teen shot a darker scowl in the stranger’s direction, though it garnered nothing more than a toothy smile in reaction. “Anyway, up you get. The Queen’s been waiting for when you finally managed to get vertical again.”

Cautiously feeling out to see just how much he could push, Stiles narrowed his eyes at the too-amused man, fingers curling in towards his palms as he fought irritation and fear and a stupidly stubborn determination refusal to back down and wait to see what would happen: always, from his youngest memory, all Stiles could remember was _push push push **push**_ , the unstoppable force that hadn’t yet met the unmovable object. Perhaps, one day, he would—but that day was not today.

“…why?” the teen asked, amber gaze clear as it chilling, arctic blue.

It came as a surprise, then, then the stranger’s smile slowly deepened, picking up just the smallest bit of a predatory edge, and something very much like _approval_ flicked briefly through that chipped ice gaze. “She’s already been waiting centuries to meet you, sweetheart. What was an extra day or two to _that_?”

“That’s rather… politic in reply,” Stiles commented in turn with, mouth twisting downwards even as the slant of the older man’s grin grew that much broader.

“Isn’t it just?” came the bladed, amused reply, and the unknown Fae reached out to grasp the back of the boy’s shirt, lifting him and forcing Stiles to find his feet beneath him once more, bringing an end to this particular thread of conversation and letting the boy know that there was pretty much no choice in the matter: regardless of what he may or may not have wanted, the sixteen year-old would soon enough be making an appearance before the Queen of the Unseelie Court.

_I just want to go home,_ Stiles thought to himself, trying to ignore the edge of despair that slowly creeped into its tone—so, too, the teen tried to ignore the thought of just how worried his dad must be by now (trying to ignore any educated guesses on just how many whiskey bottles the Sheriff must have gone through, as well—because, no matter the actual number, it still would be ‘too much.’)

+

The ceiling towered overhead, high enough to almost haze out of view even as Stiles caught the brief there-and-gone-again flash of starshine from the corner of his gaze, will-o’-the-wisp twinkling in a nearly cheerful manner despite the twilight of the fortress—castle?—at large. The floors were ice cold beneath the boy’s bare feet, stone roughly cut to the touch no matter the fact that it must have been centuries or millennia since the masons laid each piece down to create the eventual whole that would become the home of the Unseelie Court.

Everything was shadowed, gray against black against charcoal, and though Stiles tried his best to show himself fearless, at least he could admit to himself that the hummingbird beating of his heart gave the teen away: he was afraid.

The strange man—the one who had never bothered to offer Stiles a name, no matter the fact that it would have been a lie, regardless—led the amber-eyed boy down the echoing expanse of what Stiles termed _the Great Hall_ , the only thing missing from setting the scene was a horde of floating candles.

Hovering spiritlights did an excellent job of popping that comparison’s bubble rather quickly, and Stiles learned sooner rather than later to keep his gaze averted from the light it cast on the others’ faces: staring, empty-eyed skulls certainly did nothing in helping to settle his nerves.

_Breathe. Breathe, breathe, breathe. No matter what, you need to find a way to get through this._

Stiles was eventually led to the sprawling expanse of a throne at the Hall’s end, and despite the danger he currently found himself in, the teen’s attention couldn’t help but be caught by the details flicking over the throne’s bone-pale surface, carvings that gleamed with the kiss of silver as witch light illuminated far too much for the boy’s whiskey-hued gaze to catch. If the Court’s heart happened to be its Queen, her throne certainly lay as its foundation—in more ways than one.

The toothily grinning visage of a timber wolf suddenly became sharp with detail, eyes intent and somehow focused upon the mortal boy who stood before the Unseelie’s Queen, and its abrupt appearance was enough to jerk Stiles slightly back as he swallowed a surprised inhale, eventually lifting his gaze to meet crimson eyes.

She was a creature of honey-gold and mink-fur, born from the frost-limed Hunt and the call to arms: exquisite in feature and killing grace, even while the promise of the slow death of Autumn lay within the curve of her smile. The Unseelie Queen was beautiful, the standard by which Helen of Troy once aspired to reach—and terrifying in it.

“Hello, Stiles,” the Queen murmured, low and husky, and the teen could hear the baying of wolves within each syllable.

Here, now, despite the pretty mask donned for such an occasion, Stiles knew that this was the sort of eldritch creature that lurked within the depths of the abyss, reaching out to trail one claw-tipped finger along a dreamer’s spine, so intent to coax that purity down into the restless darkness to join it as the rest of the void screamed out in rage and terror and the mindless chaos that cupped the kernel of reality and made it bloom.

He shivered as she spoke his name, and the teen lowered his gaze to settle on the armored curve of a shoulder instead. “…hello,” Stiles answered and pressed the palms of his hands flat against the rough linen of his trousers, fighting to keep his voice steady.

As the last echoes of his greeting faded from the air, the Queen stood from her carved throne and made her way down from its vaunted height, moving step by step lower—closer to the boy—with an ease that clutched tight at its edge of predatory interest. Stiles never once looked away from the Daoine Sídhe Queen, even when she finally stopped before him, hand lifting to gently cup the side of his face.

She smelt like thunderstorms and roses and the copper tang of blood.

“I have waited a long time for your arrival,” she murmured, words quiet enough that the conversation stayed between the both of them. “Far too long—but patience is always rewarded, in the end. I would like to speak with you privately, perhaps after supper or tomorrow morning should the feast prove too strenuous for you. Until then, Stiles… eat. Enjoy yourself amongst my Court.”

The teen swallowed, the sound nearly audible as he continued to fight to ensure that his voice remained as steady as previous even with the Queen’s presence so close-- _too close_ \--to him. “Thanks for the offer, but. Ah. I’m not really all that hungry… if it’s all the same to you.”

As if in direct protest to the teen’s bald-faced lie, Stiles’ stomach growled angrily.

The Unseelie Queen laughed at the claim and Stiles’ stomach’s outcry, grinning predatorily at the boy—and, at this close of a distance from the woman, the teen could see how her canines came to delicate, dangerous points: a vampire’s fangs or a cat’s too-sharp teeth.

“Your belly says otherwise,” the Fae pointed out and, from the corner of his gaze, Stiles caught sight of the man who had brought him to the hall and the Queen residing within it: he, too, smiled—wide and wolfish and with too many teeth—and there were enough similarities between Queen and man that the teen realized that they must somehow be related: beautiful and dangerous and with the boy desperately treading water to somehow keep his head above the surface.

Knowing the dangers of being caught in another lie so close to the second, Stiles carefully hedged: “Maybe… however, I’ve also read one too many stories about the Fae at one a.m. to be anything but cautious, despite your generous _hospitality_.”

The Queen tilted her head to the side at that comment, the gesture both bird-like and alien even as the blood-soaked hue of her crimson gaze blazed brighter still until it was like looking in the heart of a wildfire. “My vow, then, that our food will do you no harm while you remain in these halls,” she promised in turn.

Edging over the words slowly, trying to sense the trap that he _knew_ had to be hidden there somewhere, Stiles shifted back and forth on his bare heels and again kept her gaze. “Your vow as Queen…?” the sixteen year-old hedged, feeling carefully for the cracks that were designed to trip him up.

Something flared within the Queen’s gaze, just as it had done earlier with her… brother’s? Respect or amusement or a darker-edged combination of both: it didn’t matter, not in the end, when her smile turned hungry and intent and the Queen inclined her head in agreement: non-verbal, words never crossing a tongue silvered in talent—but a binding enough promise nonetheless.

(And it was better than nothing, anyway.)

“My son will show you to your seat,” she answered with instead, phrased in such a way that Stiles could not refuse.

Glancing sidelong, following the Queen’s gesture, the teen inhaled as his heartbeat stuttered in surprise, eyes going too wide as his amber gaze caught on a familiar form. His stomach dropped in shock, vague feeling of nausea burrowing deep as it dug its claws in to herald its accompanying sense of horror and betrayal. “D… Derek?” Stiles stuttered out: while the connections had been there, dots ready to be linked up as he remembered that a Cŵn Annwn came hand-in-hand with the Wild Hunt—it still didn’t occur to Stiles to _know_ that, perhaps, he’d come across Derek while a _guest_ of the Unseelie Court.

Finding out that the Cŵn Annwn was actually the Unseelie Queen’s _son_ , though…?

Now _that_ was something that the teen wouldn’t have put money on, not in a million years.

(Wondered, absently and in the shadowed recesses of his mind, if this had all just been an elaborate set-up to somehow manage to get Stiles _here_ , present and accounted for now. It was a fact, after all, that the teen only had the vaguest recollection of Roscoe’s accident—the briefest of glimpses caught as the world shaded itself in the grayscale of twilight. And Stiles _didn’t know_. Couldn’t stop the niggling feeling of _What if…?_ : didn’t even want to, to be honest enough.)

“Come on, Stiles,” Derek ordered gruffly, moving around his mother to wrap fingers at the teen’s bicep, drawing the boy away from the heavy weight of her gaze, tugging Stiles out of the too-strong pull of her presence. Even as they both withdrew, however, Stiles could still feel the shift in the Queen’s attention, presence a prickling sensation as the hairs on the back of his neck rose and stayed at attention even as they moved farther and farther away.

It was a relief, though, to finally actually _move away_ in general even as Derek led them both to a table that was more on the outskirts of the Hall, set aside from most of the others—though still filled with the presence of more and more Fae. There was a flicker of strawberry blonde, and the teen turned his head just fast enough to catch side of Lydia from the corner of his gaze, meeting her smile with a slightly shell-shocked gaze of his own, whites of his eyes showing all ‘round the gold of his irises.

“Here: this spot is yours. Come, sit and eat,” the Cŵn Annwn continued, pulling out an empty chair and pushing at the teen’s shoulders in an effort to make him sit, surprisingly gentle despite the violence that Stiles remembered that the Hound was fully capable of giving in to. Figuring that arguing his freedom was currently a moot point, Stiles did as he was asked (commanded to) and sat. And perhaps the wave of immediate relief was telling enough when Derek claimed the seat next to his own, but it still went without saying that Derek’s presence was a familiar shore in a storm filled with unseen dangers—and Stiles was happy to cling to any touch of recognition that he could reach towards.

There was a sort of reassurance that came in Derek’s presence, fragile though it may be.

Taking a deep breath to try and still the frantic beating of his heart—still pounding away from the surge of adrenaline that roared through his veins at being confronted with the Fae Queen’s presence—Stiles clenched his hands into fists to hide their slight trembling, counting to ten, and finally reached for a plate and its accompanying cutlery when he was able to hide away his reaction.

Even if it was just for a little bit, at least Stiles could pretend that everything was all right and enjoy the overabundance of food before him.

“Happy birthday to me,” Stiles muttered quietly to himself as he grabbed a bowl of dessert to tackle after the main meal, tone carefully blank though—no matter how hard he tried otherwise—an edge of bitterness lingered still. The sixteen year-old missed Derek’s startled, sidelong glance in turn, there and gone again, before silence stretched between the both of them as they instead focused on the meal.

\--the elderflower fool was delicious, but not as good as Delilah’s cherry pie would have been.

When one considered that particular comparison: it didn’t take long before the dessert ended up tasting like ash in Stiles’ mouth, empty and unfulfilling and unpalatable with the edge of loneliness that made the treat heavy upon his tongue.

Still silent and with moss-colored eyes carefully shuttered of all emotion, Derek instead reached out to pick up another batch of elderflower fool, setting the dessert before the teen.

\+ 

A footstep scuffed against the flagstones, and Stiles blinked as he turned away from his inspection of a particularly interesting wall hanging, turning his head just enough to glance over the curve of a shoulder.

Considering the fact that the glacial-eyed man had offered no initial warning the first time they had crossed paths, the teen could only find himself grateful—grudgingly given, true enough—by the fact that the older man had given Stiles a hint of his presence _at all_ this time around.

Those same amused blue eyes met Stiles’ gaze, and the unknown Fae inclined his head in greeting as he stepped away from the nearby doorway to make his way closer to the teenage boy. “It’s rather late,” the man commented idly, eyebrow quirking in inquiry even as his attention shifted to look upon the tapestry that had occupied Stiles’ attention for a good ten minutes. “Shouldn’t you be currently finding solace in sleep?”

The sixteen year-old snorted quietly at the comment offered to him, shrugging a shoulder when the Fae glanced sidelong at him. “I don’t get much sleep, regardless of whether or not I need or want it,” Stiles explained, surprisingly frank—but, then again, this was a story that he had offered to others, even strangers, many times before. “Between the medication that I’m supposed to take and an apparent genetic predisposition towards insomnia… well, you get the picture.”

In answer, the man tilted his head to the side, gesture alien and inhuman in angle and meaning, and the Fae’s glacial eyes flared true neon blue. “That explains why _you’re_ not drifting in Morpheus’ embrace, then, sweet boy,” he continued, dark amusement flickering briefly across the man’s sharp features. “It doesn’t explain why you’re without your shadows, however.”

Stiles blinked, slow and pointed, and asked in return: “Do you mean the guards that had been hovering since the feast’s end?” The older man quirked an eyebrow at that too-innocent tone, and the sixteen year-old widened his eyes to Bambi proportions and _clarified_ by stating, “I didn’t realize that Lydia had prepared something with a sedative added to it—I must have somehow mixed the drinks up when I asked if they wanted to share a nightcap with me before everyone settled down for the night.”

The Fae gradually began to smile as Stiles’ meaning became clear, and if there were perhaps too many teeth in that predatory curl of his mouth…? Well, at least the boy was finally starting to get used to it—reminded, on a constant basis, that he was surrounded by beings that were truly not human and who perhaps watched him the same way that a predator eyed its next meal. Nothing against _him_ , really: it was just biology.

(And it made Stiles want to bare his teeth in turn, something fire-hot and burning with indignation at each sidelong, fox-like glance.)

“How unfortunate for them,” the man eventually murmured, “and how fortuitous for you.”

Stiles offered another slow, pointed blink at the too-pointed comment. “Well… If you say so.”

It was enough, however, to garner a dark burst of laughter from the man, and genuine amusement—wicked though it ended up being—lit his gaze from within. He stepped closer to the human, crowding into the boy’s personal space, and shifted just enough to rest a hand at the small of Stiles’ back. The gesture raised the hairs upon the teen’s arms, goosepimples marching in its wake, but the sixteen year-old still refused to glance away and instead met the man’s cool, lapis-hued gaze with his own amber.

Approval once again blazed in those inhuman eyes, and the man increased the pressure at the small of the teen’s back to coax Stiles into heading down the part of the hallway that he hadn’t yet gotten around to exploring—distractions presenting themselves to him at every step, prevalent and eye-catching and Stiles had never been very good at denying himself his curiosity. Wary now, however, he cautiously allowed the man to lead him elsewhere.

“I would assume, then, that you would be a rather vocal fan of libraries,” the man idly murmured as the duo turned a corner and made their way deeper through the labyrinthine twists that made up the Unseelie Court’s home.

Stiles twisted slightly at the observation, neck baring itself like the dip of a swan’s bow, and glanced up to inspect the other’s expression. And… well, the Fae was half-correct in that statement. If given a choice, the teen would always default to his laptop, loving the instant access to information that had accumulated for years, scanned in and added to by contributors—libraries building up online, an electronic wealth of knowledge that mirrored the long-dead Library of Alexandria. 

_But_ …

He was also willing to bet that the internet wouldn’t have _any_ of the texts Stiles would most likely find in a Faerie Court’s library.

Drumming his fingers over his thigh and chewing on the inside of his cheek as he weighed his response, the teen finally gave it up as a lost cause—especially with how it was obvious that the Fae’s smirk just continued to deepen at the boy’s lingering silence—and muffled a sigh before venturing: “…I wouldn’t _mind_ visiting the Court’s library. If that’s where you’re taking me, I mean. Just to clarify. And if that’s _not_ where you’re taking me, I definitely request a change in destination ASAP.”

The Fae snorted quietly at that, not bothering to hide his entertainment with Stiles’ antics, and the boy made note of all of the various twists and turns as the older man continued to guide him deeper into the bowels of the maze-like structure. It was enough that Stiles was content enough with the resulting silence that settled between them both, strangely comfortable despite the fact that they were essentially both strangers to one another: and it was that reminder that had the boy yet again twisting just enough to look up at his new tour guide. 

“You know…” Stiles began, “I know enough to realize that the names that people here have been offering me aren’t their actual names—their True Names. But _you_ also haven’t offered me _anything_ at all to call you.”

The curl of the man’s smile was knowing, a trickster’s sly slant more than the feral-edged wolfishness that had been prevalent earlier, firmly established and lingering darkly in the edges of his mouth, hair-raising all the same.

“You can call me Peter, sweetheart.”

Stiles squinted in return at _Peter’s_ answer, expression both carefully weighing and suspicious—disbelief prevalent with the _knowing_ that came regardless of how easily the Fae had given that particular name to the teen (because Stiles was learning better). 

“…really? Because you look more like an _Ian_ to me.”

+

The library was everything that Stiles had been dreaming of.

The space was expansive, almost too large to truly comprehend, and the various aisles—each filled to the brim with books—went on and on. There were so many books laid out before him that the teen knew that there would be no way to read them all, not in a multitude of lifetimes. Stiles didn’t bother hiding both his awe and glee from Peter: the older man would have immediately been able to pick on them considering the fact that the boy’s jaw had immediately dropped upon entering the huge room.

“Where can I start?” the sixteen year-old immediately asked once the realization that Peter had brought him here to browse through the plethora of information finally sunk in—as far as Stiles was aware, he was fully able to pick and choose and _read_ whatever he picked up. The Fae hadn’t given any indication otherwise, and that… that alone was almost (emphasis upon _almost_ ) worth the problems that this particular visit would result in whenever he finally managed to get back home.

Peter shrugged idly in reply, something terrifyingly like sympathetic understanding flickering briefly in his too-bright gaze—even as he gestured towards the library at large. “Anywhere you’d like.”

Stiles would deny it should anyone ever call him out on it, but he could _feel_ the way that his face lit up at the offer—there was no point in hiding just how quickly he made off towards the closest aisle, either, not when excitement at the chance of learning something new and different presented itself to him and topped itself off with a neatly-tied bow. Perhaps suspicion should have still been his very first reaction in this specific incidence, but it was late and the boy was tired despite the racing of his mind—and Stiles didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth.

He could hear Peter following at a more sedate pace, footsteps level as the man followed the amber-eyed teen from aisle to aisle; amusement was obviously one of the Fae’s more readily apparent reactions—but, still, he didn’t say anything to mock Stiles for his enthusiasm.

“How many of these books have you read?” the teen asked absently as he quickly thumbed through his most recent find, glancing over the text to see if it was something that he could ask to take back with him to his room.

The older man glanced around them at the question, gaze assessing as he took in the many shelves and the plethora of books that they held. Eventually, however, Peter offered his younger companion a slight smirk in turn and answered: “Most of them, actually. I haven’t ventured too far into the music collection, however—I was never partial to it and Talia has always been quick to remind me that I don’t have an ear for it, anyway.”

_Most of them_ \--a realization dawning as to how old the Fae must truly be, considering just _how many_ books filled the library.

It was a realization that made Stiles slowly still and grow quiet, weighing the knowledge that had just come to life for him—and wondering if, perhaps, he could push for an answer to a question that had lingered within his mind since he had woken up here, within the eerie embrace of the Unseelie Court. Stiles wanted, _so desperately_ , to know: and every time he had asked another, he had been neatly sidestepped around, others avoiding answering his questions with a demure, Gallic smile.

“Peter…” the teen ventured, feeling out the minefield that he knew lay before him. “How did I get here?”

“No one’s told you?” the man with the killing-cold blue eyes asked in return, eyebrows lifting in surprise—feigned or otherwise, though Stiles knew where he’d be willing to place his money—even as he leaned into the teen’s space, body a warm line against the boy’s own side. “That’s rather unhospitable of them, especially since—“

“ _Uncle_.”

Neon-blue and whiskey-hued gazes glanced towards the end of the aisle, and Derek stepped into view, already immediately tossing a disapproving glance Peter’s way.

Ignoring the unimpressed expression that settled over the older Fae’s features at Derek’s interruption, the Cŵn Annwn continued, tone of voice as unyielding as steel and still absolutely unphased as he easily met Peter’s eyes with his own: “We’re not supposed to talk about it. Not until the Queen has the chance to speak with Stiles.”

Something twisted within Stiles at that comment, angry and bitter—still not forgetting the fact that he was _here_ and woken up hurt and that his dad very likely thought that Stiles was dead and missing from the car crash. His fingers tightened around the edges of the book that he was currently holding, and both Peter and Derek’s attention shifted downwards at the unexpected _creak_ of the thick text bending and giving way beneath the teen’s grip.

“Okay. And how is that fair to _me_ in any way, shape, or form?” the sixteen year-old bit out before either court member had the chance to comment. “For all intents and purposes, I woke up a normal teenager however many days ago it’s been. Then I was attacked by a group of Cŵn Annwn—that Derek has informed me _aren’t_ Cŵn Annwn, but he won’t tell me what they _are_ —and then I get attacked on my way to my birthday dinner with my dad. After which? I woke up here. No one’s clarified _anything_ and the only thing I got during our first meeting is Derek’s claim that I’m some Child of Prophecy bullshit.”

Peter sighed at that, long and drawn-out and disappointed even as a hand came up so that he could absently rub at a temple, soothing away the headache he could suddenly feel building. “…Nephew,” the man drawled out, “out of everything that you could have possibly told our guest, how is it that you managed to give away both the most useless and pertinent bits of information?”

There was no verbal answer from the Hound, though it was obvious that Derek’s glare had gotten darker at hearing his uncle’s criticism.

The older man eventually just shook his head, resigned to the fact that he’d most likely be receiving a punishment from his sister from what he was planning on doing; but it was true, as well, that Derek had already tangled everything into a knot by his partial, ham-handed reveal—and, besides, Peter had every bit of faith that Stiles was fully capable of finding the answers he was searching for within the treasure trove of information and knowledge he was currently surrounded by. The sixteen year-old certainly had enough of the puzzle pieces to finish putting the entirety of the picture together, after all.

Peter would be lying if he said that it wasn’t tempting to refuse to answer and allow the problem to become someone else’s—but, if the Fae went that route, he knew enough about Stiles and his personality to acknowledge the fact that the teen would never again trust him and would also most likely do everything in his power to keep his distance. And Peter… well, Peter found that thought distasteful.

Offering up another sigh at the realization that he’d be getting an earful (and more) from Talia once she heard what he had done, Peter shifted just enough to comfortably lean against the bookshelf they were currently standing next to and crossed his arms over his chest, though still kept his attention fully settled upon Stiles’ constant, mercurial expressions.

“Derek was correct—and not—when he told you that you weren’t attacked by a pack of Cŵn Annwn,” the blue-eyed man began, features shifting—for the very first time—into something alien and _Other_ , giving lie to the humanity that the Fae wore so well: mansuit peeling away layer by layer to reveal the monster within. The teen opened his mouth then, most likely to snark at Peter’s initial lack of clarity, but the Fae continued before Stiles was given the chance to actually say anything. “What attacked you were the descendants, dumbed down and bred for obedience only, of what had been Cŵn Annwn… once upon a time ago, anyway. Nowadays? They’ve become what the demons intended them to be: Hellhounds. Mindless, vicious, borderline-feral beasts that heeded the call of the crossroads demons and no one else.”

Stiles remained silent for a moment or two, processing the words—and perhaps the implications that lay hidden within Peter’s words, just waiting for the boy to look at them _just so_ and see what remained: the fact that Cŵn Annwn had been taken by others, had been selectively bred to become what they were presently—that Daoine Sídhe, shapeshifters like Derek, had lost mothers or fathers or siblings or aunts or uncles (anyone, _everyone_ , so many gone) and were well-aware that they’d never get them back. That _Derek_ had lost cousins and older siblings; had fought, then, relatives—distant though they now were—when stepping in to save the teen.

The Purge had been a blight upon Daoine Sídhe history and, while the Seelie Court had been less affected than its darker mirror, loss had been experienced by all.

Eventually, however, the teen continued—as Peter suspected he would. His words came slowly, cautiously, and it was obvious that the boy was feeling his way around the words to get the most honest answer from the elder of the two Fae: figuring, as well, that Peter was the best source for more information, especially since Derek was still looking disapprovingly at his uncle. “And what about whatever it was that attacked me? What was _that_? And why did it go after me in the first place, Peter…?”

A snarl from the Hound accompanied Stiles’ initial question, and Peter glanced sidelong at his nephew, quirking an eyebrow in inquiry though he was well-aware that Derek would most likely not be offering up any other commentary. When the younger Fae remained silent, Peter shrugged internally and answered the boy’s questions: “The creature that attacked you is what is called a Bergrisar. What had been a mountain troll—again, once upon a time ago. Judging by its size… I would say that it was most likely dragged up from the Seventh Circle.”

“Of Hell?” the teen asked as a complicated expression settled upon his features.

The raised eyebrow was now directed Stiles’ way. “Where else would the Hellhounds have taken you, sweetheart?” Peter asked, ignoring—still—the low growl that came from his nephew’s general vicinity. “If Derek hadn’t stepped in to rescue you— _both_ times, mind, because my nephew has never realized when to quit—you would be finding yourself in some very _hot_ water.”

Silence was the teen’s reply for several long moments, and Peter offered Stiles the courtesy of his silence as the Fae allowed the boy to process the information presented to him. It was obvious, catching sight of the unhappy slant of the boy’s mouth as he frowned, trying to work his way through the complications that Peter had purposefully plopped him in the middle of without offering the courtesy of context. The elder Fae had been kind enough to provide an explanation that Derek refused to give, but nothing kept Peter from making Stiles _work_ for the answer that the boy was so desperately groping for.

Turning to hide his expression from the other two men, Stiles slotted the book that he had been holding back onto the shelf and trailed fingers along the cracked leather of multiple spines before pulling another text out at random. Fingertips running along the edges of this new book, the teen finally asked: “So then how does this whole _Child of Prophecy_ play out with everything? I’m not… I’m **not**. I’m not _that_. I don’t understand why anyone would think—“

Before Stiles had the chance to gear up for his argument, however, Derek was the one who interrupted this time around, voice sharp and impatient—though moss-hued eyes also somehow dangerously kind, as well, in knowing just what the truth would do to the teen.

“Stiles. You haven’t been told everything that you need to—not yet—but you know better than that.”

“I _don’t_ ,” the teen immediately shot back, jut of his jawline mulish and angry.

Shaking his head and stepping in before Stiles could wrap himself any more thoroughly in his denial, Peter huffed a quiet, frustrated breath and snapped his fingers. The sound echoed oddly in the open air, ringing back and forth and gathering strength the longer that the sound stretched out for—and the moment that the sound abruptly _stopped_ , Stiles was dragged to his knees, book falling from suddenly useless hands as golden chains materialized out of thin air. The boy’s hands were bound to the small of his back, restraints digging cruelly into the bared flesh of Stiles’ arms while a collar clasped snugly to his throat, tightly enough and weighty enough into forcing the teen to bow his head beneath the yoke.

“No, Stiles. You _do_ ,” the elder Fae corrected, tone brutally honest as Peter aimed to cut through all of Stiles’ attempts at denial. “What you finally have the chance to see? Are the chains of the contract that you _willingly_ entered into with a crossroads demon. It never went away, just became inert enough to be ignored when the terms fell through. But when you lit yourself up like a supernova, sweetheart? You painted yourself with a bullseye and that contract flared back to life. And now everyone wants a piece of you. The sooner you acknowledge that fact—because nothing you do will change it—the sooner you can decide _what you want to do about it_.”

Stiles kept his head bowed as a fine trembling ran over his limbs, leaving him shivering even as he knelt at Peter and Derek’s feet. “Get rid of them,” he finally gritted out. “Make them go away again.”

“Peter can make them disappear, like they were before, but he doesn’t have the power to break the contract. Only the crossroads demon that you struck the deal with can.” Derek’s reply was surprisingly gentle; though, when the words registered in Stiles’ mind, the trembling just increased despite the silence on the teen’s end. The Cŵn Annwn attempted again, fumbling and awkward but still _trying_. “I’m sorry, Stiles. The contract is tied to your soul, and it’s impossible to—“

“Make them disappear, then. Like they were before. Make them go away so that I don’t have to look at them.”

The elder of the two Unseelie Court members exchanged a sidelong glance with his nephew, but taking away the contract’s visibility was a simple enough thing for Peter to do: a single thought, a small flex of his power, and the chains and collar faded away. Freed from the bindings, Stiles brought his arms around to his chest and immediately began rubbing at now-raw wrists.

Knowing that the teen wouldn’t look forward to any additional information, not after this particular reveal, Peter yet continued—it was either address as much as possible now, when Stiles was already being forced to listen and acknowledge the position he was in (there was no way he could ignore this problem until it went away—the issue so much _greater_ than just his specific destiny) or allow the silence to fester and disbelief to linger: not an actual option available when the consequences of such a lack of information would lead to catastrophic results.

“Stiles,” Peter quietly said, shifting so that he was crouching before the kneeling boy. The gesture was finally enough to force Stiles into lifting his head, amber gaze—so alight with restrained fury and earth-shattering grief—meeting the Fae’s own sea-foam blue. “You aren’t human. Neither was your mother. And the power that had been slumbering within you from the moment of your conception—your Grace, that Divine _Spark_ \--is the reason why you’ll be hunted until you’re finally caught by _someone_ or until the day you die.”

The boy shuddered at Peter’s proclamation, panic and despair sinking their claws deep into his chest, and he covered his eyes with one hand to force back the tears that threatened to fall.

“Why?” he whispered. “ _Why?_ ”

He didn’t understand--

+

_A nine-year old Stiles glanced up at the clear blue of a summertime sky, lips pursing unhappily at how the world was warm, the presence of the sun overhead promising that today would have the type of weather that the boy one-time hoped for: perfect for a hike out to the Preserve or to desperately beg his mother to take him and Scott out to the coast to play at the beach. Days like this hinted at sand between his toes or the taste of chlorine on his tongue as he came up for air in the community pool; promised lemonade popsicles and mischief with Scott, of hours filled with freedom from the lack of school and years stretching ever onwards, seasons eventually blurring together, but still filled with family and friends._

_The sound of graveyard dirt hitting his mother’s coffin made the boy flinch in surprise, and Stiles jerked his eyes down from the sky overhead to stare at the cemetery workers as they dug their shovels into the mound of earth that stood just off to the side of the service._

_Something within him broke each time the men dumped another shovelful of dirt into the gaping hole that held his mother’s coffin, and Stiles wanted nothing more than to yank himself away from his dad and to **scream** : scream at everyone who had come here to watch his mom get put in the ground, scream at his dad who had buried himself more thoroughly in his liquor bottles over the past several weeks—becoming a ghost of the man that Stiles had loved Before and still needed so desperately, scream at a sky that should be dark with clouds, waiting to release torrents of rain to echo the tears that Stiles still couldn’t allow himself to give, weather matching the despair and fury that raged without voice within his chest._

_Scream out at a demon who broke the covenant that they had entered into—shattered the contract into **nothing** , and ripped a gaping wound within Stiles’ life that he couldn’t ever hope to sew close. Scream out at the demon for her betrayal, for the fact that she had given the boy hope when his mom finally started getting better—relieved to pay the price that he had if it ensured that Claudia would continue to be present in his life—and then ripping it all to pieces when his mom had then suddenly died in the middle of the night, her hand gripping tightly at his own and her last words being, “Bądź bezpieczny, kochanie. Pogłódź Płomień, zanim ożyje.”_

_**Be safe, my love. Smother the Flame before it comes to life.** _

_But none of it mattered, not with his mother dead and gone and the house so much **emptier** than it had ever been before. No more lullabies at night, no more chocolate chip cookies as a surprise when he came home from school. No more crooned affections in his mother’s native Polish, no more family dinners: no more Claudia Stilinski, no more mother, no more **Matka**._

_And yet, despite the devastation of Stiles’ loss, the world kept turning._

_It wasn’t fair, none of it was, and Stiles still tried his best to remain standing even under the weight of his father’s hold upon his shoulder, the older man’s grip tight enough to leave behind the blue-black kiss of bruises—the Sheriff desperate to find some sort of solace when the whiskey-promised oblivion was beyond his grasp. It **wasn’t fair** , none of it was, and the boy desperately wanted the day to reflect the turmoil that was a maelstrom within his heart: thunder and lightning, the skies midnight-dark with a thick layer of clouds. There should be snow and it should have been winter—the ground **should have** been impossible to dig into, should have been impossible to bury his mother within. **If the world had been fair.**_

_”Go say good-bye to your mom, Stiles,” the Sheriff whispered through a throat that was too tight, and he released his hold upon his son—fingers uncurling one by one until the boy was finally left adrift—and nudged Stiles gently so that the nine year-old could take a step closer towards the open hole in the ground. The boy stared blankly at the grave’s edge, mind shifting to gray-tinged static, and he shuddered at the finality that lay threaded within his father’s words._

_Good-bye? It was his **mom**. His **mother**. How could he say good-bye? He couldn’t. He **couldn’t** because it meant that Stiles finally had to acknowledge the fact that there was no coming back from this: this was an end, a conclusion, and everything that he had done to otherwise keep this moment from happening had failed. And now he was left with the finality that the amber-eyed boy had been so desperate to keep from happening—but nothing he had done had worked, and now Stiles was left with nothing to do but **say good-bye** to a corpse whose had he had been clinging to just days before. Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye:_

_Stiles swallowed roughly and refused to take that single step forward, clutching hard enough at the white rose in his hand that the blunted thorns eventually managed to break skin. Blood slipped down and out between the boy’s clenched fingers, drip-drip-dripping onto the green fabric beneath his feet._

_Good-bye--_

_The boy closed his eyes, expression screwing up as rage and hate and grief and despair and loneliness howled within the cavity of his chest, and Stiles fought-- **so hard** \--even as the burn of tears finally trickled out from beneath the trembling, sooty line of his lashes._

_And he refused to move any closer to that open **grave**._

_Good-bye…?_

_**I don’t ever want to say good-bye.** _

_”Stiles, **go** ,” the boy’s father ordered, voice somehow finding a much firmer tone than before despite the fact that John felt like he was speaking through a mouthful of glass. The Sheriff’s nudge was much firmer than previously, forcing his son forwards, and Stiles stumbled and nearly fell as he was practically shoved towards the hole in the ground._

_The bloodied rose fell from Stiles’ nerveless fingers, and the boy stared down at the coffin that lay resting at the bottom of the grave that was to become his mother’s new home: wondering, head cotton-filled and thick with hazy fog, why it was that this happened—why he had to feel such loss. Why? **Why?**_

_His mouth remained tightly pressed together as he stared down at the slowly filling grave, the word ‘good-bye’ refusing to touch his tongue, and there was no stopping the floodgates of his tears now that his father made him confront the acknowledgement of Stiles’ new reality: there was now a hole in his life that would be impossible to be filled._

_Stiles wept._

+

_Good-bye._   
_Good-bye._   
_Good-bye…_

_**Do widzenia.** _


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated specifically to [sexyspork](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sexyspork/pseuds/sexyspork) for a number of reasons, up to and including: 1) Cheering me on while I was writing this story for NaNoWriMo; 2) Making sure that I am 100% aware of just how much this story is being enjoyed (omg, you seriously have no idea just how much your commentary cheered me up after each read <3); and 3) My attempt at offering a groveling apology for being so behind on writing and posting the fic that I already owe you. Secret Santas are _finally_ done, so your stories are next on my list, I promise (and I'm already working on the first!).  <3
> 
> I hope that you enjoy this chapter!
> 
> (...though I'll probably be getting an earful at the end of it. ;D)

**PART III.**  
_And I will stay up through the night_  
_And let's be clear, won't close my eyes_  
_And I know that I can survive_  
_I'll walk through fire to save my life_  
_And I want it, I want my life so bad_  
_I'm doing everything I can_  
_Then another one bites the dust_  
_It's hard to lose a chosen one_  
[“Elastic Heart”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWZGAExj-es) \- Sia

+

Stiles awoke to gritty eyes, lashes glued to the tops of his cheeks from both the sticky remains of sleep and tears. A headache lingered, pressing down along the center of the teen’s forehead, and the amber-eyed boy groaned softly as he reached up to scrub roughly at his face—trying to push himself towards the more _aware_ end of the spectrum of consciousness, no matter the fact that he currently felt like roadkill.

“There’s breakfast. If you’re feeling up to it,” a familiar voice said from the edge of the teen’s bed, and Stiles allowed his hands to fall back down to the sheets beneath him so that he could shoot Derek a rather disgruntled look.

There were many things that he could start with, but perhaps this was the most important issue to address: “Were you sitting there all night, Sourwolf?” the teen asked and pushed himself upright to lean his weight on an elbow. “Because, if you did, that’s _Twilight_ levels of creepiness that I _really_ don’t want to deal with first thing in the morning.”

Derek’s answering expression was confused, but the Cŵn Annwn was able to infer enough from the sixteen year-old’s verbal cues to soon enough provide Stiles with the most impressive Bitch Face that the boy had ever seen. It made Stiles break out in tired laughter, arm giving out beneath him so that the amber-eyed teen could then muffle his amusement in the plushness of the pillows scattered across the head of his bed.

Sighing quietly and trying his best to ignore the way that the tight knot of tension and worry slowly uncurled at hearing the other’s laughter—exhausted though it obviously was—Derek allowed himself a small huff of breath before again prompting the teen towards the meal set out for him. “I wasn’t sitting here all night, Stiles,” the Unseelie Hound corrected with an exasperated eyeroll. “I came in maybe ten minutes ago with the food.”

Giving a soft sigh as the laughter slowly trickled off, the teen turned his head just enough to inspect the Cŵn Annwn with one bright, amber eye. His words were a bit muffled since he remained partially on the pillow, but Stiles still happened to be clear enough that Derek was able to understand his reply. “Room service, just for me? Or does everyone get their meals delivered—except for dinner?”

“It’s just for this particular breakfast, Stiles,” Derek answered and gestured for the teen to sit up. “My mother wants to speak with you after you’re done eating, and Lydia asked that I check your injuries to see how they’re healing.”

The last comment had Stiles tilting his head in curiosity as he glanced at Derek, a million and one thoughts flickering through his bright gaze even as he reached forward to grab a clementine, breaking through the bright skin with the edge of a thumbnail and immediately peeling it away to bare the fresh flesh within. There was a sort of weight within his eyes, unsure as to whether or not it would be wise to continue, but the teen eventually murmured around a piece of fruit: “…didn’t Lydia add anything to the poultices that she slathered on me? To, y’know. Help accelerate the healing process?”

Derek’s brow furrowed at the question, confusion darkening the moss of his eyes even as one side of his mouth twisted downwards, uncertain and trying to feel out just what Stiles truly meant by his comments. “No. None of the salves she took from the infirmary were supposed to make the wounds heal faster.”

Stiles’ mouth pursed at that, though he didn’t offer any sort of reply in turn—though he _did_ break off a piece of the clementine, reaching out to offer the bright orange fruit to the Cŵn Annwn. At a temporary loss at what to do, Derek did take the fruit from Stiles, letting the burst of flavor spread across his tongue as he bit into the clementine piece: watching the teen as the boy watched him, neither willing to be the first to break the silence.

Surprisingly, however, it was _Derek_ who gave in first. Brow once more furrowing as he eyed the teen, the Hound spoke carefully, aware of the various pitfalls that had come from the late night conversation just hours before. “Is there a reason why you were specifically wondering that about the poultices, Stiles…?”

Humming idly, obviously still lost in thought, Stiles pulled up the sleeve of his shirt to bare a forearm that had been covered in road rash just the day before. The skin was unblemished, milky pale in the low light of the boy’s room—uninjured and whole, and Derek’s eyes widened slightly at the sight.

“No injuries for you to tend to, Sourwolf,” Stiles commented unnecessarily.

“…my mother still wants to speak with you once you’re done, though.” An almost useless reply in turn, but the only response that came readily to Derek’s tongue: every other thought stuttering to a halt as he weighed the implications that came paired with the fact that Stiles was no longer wounded from his run-in with the mountain troll.

“Fair enough.”

The teen lowered his vivid amber gaze at that answer, avoiding looking at Derek’s face even as he broke apart a bread roll filled with nuts and raisins and rhubarb; he ate it as quickly as he did the clementine, gestures sharp and giving away the fact that the boy’s mind was a million miles away. It reminded the Cŵn Annwn—at least a little bit—of the blank expression that would oftentimes settle across Peter’s features as the older Fae looked out over the chessboard he kept in his quarters: weighing each possible move, plays and schemes spreading out like a battlefield within his mind’s view.

Worried about what would be uncovered if he poked at this particular sleeping dragon, Derek allowed the silence to remain between them both for the duration of the meal, occasionally offering Stiles fruits and breads that were just slightly out of his reach and granting the teen a certain type of peace before he needed to gather together his wits to once more meet the Unseelie Queen.

+

The Great Hall was empty of the other courtiers at this time of day.

Stiles followed the rigid line of Derek’s back as the Unseelie Hound made his way down the center of the Hall, glancing sidelong at all of the darkened corridors leading to parts unknown—unexplored even during the previous night’s unapproved scouting expedition. The air rang oddly, as well, echoing with a certain type of haunting quality that mirrored the lack of presence that had filled the Hall during the feast. It made the atmosphere that much heavier, a weight settling unwanted and undesired upon Stiles’ shoulders—growing more and more prevalent the closer that Derek and the teen got to the throne at the end of the entranceway.

Derek stopped just before the platform, offering a slight bow to his mother, and stepped off to the side so that the whiskey-eyed boy was facing her directly. He tilted his chin upwards, spine ramrod straight as opposed to the typical, lazy slouch that Stiles defaulted to, limbs awkward and almost always akimbo—every which way—as he used them to emphasize his various verbal points during conversations. But here, now, the teen was too-still, too restrained: carved from marble and amber, meeting her crimson eyes with his bright gaze.

Movement shifted within the shadows just behind the throne, and Stiles’ attention moved just enough to catch sight of a telling flare of neon blue, arctic in hue and in intent. Peter, then.

“You stated last night that you wished to speak with me, Your Majesty.”

“I did,” Talia answered, voice low and rumbling through the open expanse of air like thunder. “Some of what I wished to speak with you about my brother addressed last night instead.” There was a rebuke layered within the Queen’s words, though Peter looked unfazed when Stiles’ attention shifted momentarily to the older man. Continuing, the red-eyed woman said: “Still… you have yet to be told the most important bit of information.”

Stiles remained diplomatically silent at the Queen’s statement, words kept tightly pressed behind his sealed lips: it was obvious that she was planning on expanding on Peter’s words from the night before, but being the first to address the topic…? No, not quite. 

The teen remembered the man’s words-- _“You aren’t human. Neither was your mother. And the power that had been slumbering within you from the moment of your conception—your Grace, that Divine Spark--is the reason why you’ll be hunted until you’re finally caught by someone or until the day you die.”_ \--and the slow breakdown that had perhaps been years in coming, tears falling without an end in sight until Stiles finally exhausted himself into sleep. So, too, was the confirmation that the crossroads demon’s contract still had its claws sunk deep into him, the statement that he was something else and disconnected away from his father, whatever that _Other_ may end up being—and along with it all was the memory that came of his mother’s funeral and the grief that lingered even now from her lack of presence. 

Maybe Talia intended to gift the teen with the clarity that he still lacked; maybe not.

But Peter had also given Stiles enough of the puzzle to finally slot those last few pieces into place.

“Stiles,” the Fae continued, rushing ever onwards with the destructive intent that lay buried in every curl and surge of an incoming tsunami, “do you know what the Daoine Sídhe are?”

The amber-eyed boy tilted his head to the side, just so, and chose his words carefully as he tried to feel for the point that the Unseelie Queen was laying out her chess pieces to make. “…yes and no. It depends on which legend you’re talking about—and it’s been long enough since that particular late night reading extravaganza that I _know_ I don’t remember all of the stories.”

“Tell me which ones you _do_ recall.”

He knew that the trap lay somewhere ahead, but Stiles couldn’t yet figure out what _point_ it was that the Queen was trying to make—because he _didn’t_ remember everything, knew that he was missing key factors, and was fully aware that this was where he was going to stumble and fall, stuttering out before he could perhaps offer up the bit of knowledge that Talia was waiting for. However, she gave and order, and Stiles knew well enough that there was little that he could do _but_ list off what he knew:

“Uh, well… there are stories that talk about how the Daoine Sídhe are what remain of the pagan gods and goddesses after Christianity was brought to the Celtic people. I read somewhere else that they’re what trickled down to become modern-day fairies and elves. Then there’re the stories, too, how the Daoine Sídhe are the Tuatha Dé Danann—the people who inhabited Ireland a long time ago. They were defeated by… um. The Milans. No, shit. Wait. The… Miles’? Milesians? Another race of people, and then they went somewhere else.”

Talia settled back upon her throne, shifting just enough to prop her cheek against the golden curve of her hand. She never once looked away from Stiles as he recited what he could remember, gaze intent in a way that screamed _threat!_ to the teen boy: but quietly, sinisterly so, and Stiles did his best to ignore how goosepimples marched up and down his arms the longer that she stared at him, silent and predatory.

“There is another story regarding the Daoine Sídhe that you haven’t yet mentioned, Stiles,” the Queen commented idly enough.

Helplessly, Stiles shrugged—unsure of what she wanted him to say. “Probably. There are actually most likely loads of other stories that are out there that I haven’t listed off, Your Majesty. But… like I said, it’s been a while. And that’s all I can remember.”

He could feel the trap edging closer still: the reason for all of this and Derek’s claim of _Child of Prophecy_ , pointless though the boy believed it to be.

The Unseelie Queen hummed softly in reply, lashes lowering and allowing her gaze to go half-lidded and lulling in the patience that she exuded, so very, very still: like a snake just waiting to finally strike.

“One such story that you don’t seem to recall is that the Tuatha Dé Danann were angels that Fell during the War of Heaven: those who took neither God nor Lucifer’s side, who refrained from participating in the fight—and who were cast out as a result of that neutrality. Their sins weren’t grave enough to warrant eternal damnation. But because they did not side with their Heavenly brethren, they were viewed as sinners and betrayers.”

Stiles knew that the trap was closing and the teen shifted back on his heels even as he lightly asked: “And which story is true, then?”

“Which story do _you_ think?” Talia volleyed back, Mona Lisa smile still firmly upon her face as the Queen watched the slightly fidgeting boy from beneath the lush line of her lashes.

The trap snapped shut, catching Stiles within the biting, unrelenting grasp of jagged teeth: and the teen stared up at the Unseelie Queen, gaze as blank as he could make it while trying to find the sort of response that Talia was looking for. He couldn’t—not really, it was impossible—and the teen cautiously replied with: “…I don’t know the answer to that, Your Majesty, and I can’t decide which reply would be most politic for you.”

She laughed at his frank honesty and grinned at him, teeth baring themselves in a wolfish, bladed smile. “The last one,” Talia said, and her crimson gaze flared with both painful memory and ice-cold wrath—and perhaps the Fae had been playing borderline human with Stiles for too long, but the boy had nearly _forgotten_ what this woman, this creature truly was: even beneath the sharp teeth and blood-hued eyes. She was a being of the hunt, of the killing cold, and the darkness that crept upon humanity as the clock struck midnight, stealing away life and light—and it was here and now that Stiles was _reminded_.

“The answer that you’re searching for is this: the last story is the one that holds the truest kernel of truth.”

The teen would have been lying if he said that the reply was unexpected: the emphasis that Talia had placed upon the story told would have given the truth away for that alone—but there was fear now, in the fact that she had revealed this history to the amber-eyed boy. And Stiles couldn’t help but wonder the most important question of all, the one that _no one_ seemed fit to answer for him: **Why?**

The bits and pieces kept piling up, the treasure trove of information getting higher and higher—but there was no complete answer for the teen, not yet, and Stiles was still left groping and fumbling in the dark, searching for the key that would finally allow him to see _everything_ before him. That bit was still out of his reach, hidden and squirreled away from others; there was the promise that ‘all would be revealed,’ but the teasers kept coming and Stiles was getting _tired_ of the emphasis played upon the role that he was expected to undertake-- _Child of Prophecy_ , destiny that the teen would be happy to allow to slip through his fingertips--but there was nothing that he could do right now except wait.

When Stiles did not provide the expected reaction to the Queen’s reveal, as silence stretched like taffy—malleable and sticky—within the open air of the Great Hall, Talia’s gaze once more lidded even as she shifted to lean forward to settle closer towards the still-waiting teen: expecting the other shoe to drop.

And it did.

“Before the War of Heaven—before Lucifer and his ilk were sentenced to Hell—angels roamed freely upon the earth. They interacted freely with Man, one with the people and the people welcomed the angels amongst them. And, at times, the angels—“

Stiles interrupted Talia before she went any further, swaying slightly in place as he felt all of the blood rush from his head, leaving him light-headed and dizzy and _ill_ with the implications that she was laying before him and setting the teen up for her eventual reveal. But: again, Stiles had spent too many nights awake and bored, pouring over one Wikipedia article after another as one a.m. moved into two and into three to not understand where it was the Unseelie Queen was heading towards.

“ _\--the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose._ Genesis, wasn’t it? You’re talking about the children born from them—the angels and women. Nephilim.”

Talia smiled at that, and Stiles realized with dawning horror:

“You.”

_Checkmate._

+

The following hours passed in a sort of daze for the teen: information overloaded to the point that Stiles was having difficulty processing. He _understood_ the point that Talia had made before him, had followed headlong into the trap—only realizing that it was too late when it closed behind him and he was left both floundering and drowning in water that was too deep to stay afloat in.

The Unseelie Queen left him alone after the reveal—despite the fact that there were still too many gaping holes in the knowledge that Stiles _did_ have—and the teen wandered, adrift and silent as a ghost, through the suspiciously empty corridors of the castle. The sixteen year-old encountered no one as he walked, buried in thought and only with a shadow in the shape of a midnight-dark wolf to guide him towards the safe turns and edges that made up the maze of the Unseelie’s home.

Eventually, Stiles’ wandering brought him to the main courtyard of the keep, and it was there that the teen stopped, attention settling upon the men and women who were sparring amongst each other in the chill, winter-kissed air. Men against men, women against women, men against women: there was no discernable pattern to what determined who sparred against whom, especially when groupings switched abruptly and fighters were oftentimes faced with new opponents at the drop of a hat. It was an intricate, complex dance that promised blood and violence with one wrong move—and the teen couldn’t find himself at all surprised to see Peter in charge of it all, calling out formations and shifts in a voice that rang with power.

Gone was the banter that he indulged himself in with Stiles. Gone was the trickster, the shadowed blade that his sister wielded with granite-limed hardness; gone was the sly wit and the intelligent, cool blue gaze. Here, _now_ , there was a millennia old warrior, and Stiles _realized_ that this was someone he’d never be able to win against should they ever come face-to-face in a battle, heart picking up as the amber-eyed boy watched as Peter ducked beneath the swing of a broadsword to slam the pommel of one of his daggers into the kidneys of his current partner.

There was a brutality present here that had been expertly hidden before, and the contrast was enough to raise the hairs along the teen’s arms, hindbrain whispering _Danger Danger Danger Danger!_ even as Stiles reached down to bury his long fingers in the thick ruff at the nape of Derek’s neck.

Derek shifted the bulk of his weight against Stiles, leaning against the lean muscle of the teen’s thigh, and the gesture was enough to make Stiles’ fingers tighten reflexively in the Cŵn Annwn’s fur. The warmth of the Hound’s pelt and the sight before him triggered the memory from before, the first day that Stiles had met Derek—and it occurred to him, just then, how thoroughly distanced the Hellhounds were from what they used to be and how horrifying it must have been for the Queen’s son to face off against what had been distant relatives once upon a time ago and now had become nothing more than mindless, will-less beasts.

Comparing the Daoine Sídhe’s sparring practice to how the fight had gone with the Hellhounds… there _was_ no comparison—everything might have been the difference between night and day, and so, too, the stark realization settled: there was little enough that Stiles would be able to do if he was forced to participate in a _real_ fight.

There’d be nothing to do but die.

Stiles shuddered in a breath, amber gaze tracking Peter’s violent and quick movements as he shifted from the partner he had downed and moved on to a new one, and took a moment to further soak in the softness of Derek’s fur and the warmth of the Cŵn Annwn against the line of his body—and finally pulled away to slip back into the cool darkness of the corridors.

Derek’s gaze met Peter’s for a brief second before the elder’s eyes flared blue, and the Cŵn Annwn lowered his head at the silent order and resumed following after one-time human boy.

+

The Queen’s brother eventually found Stiles and Derek both back in the library: Stiles had barricaded himself behind a fortress of towering books, curling up in one of the many recessed alcoves that were scattered along the walls. Derek lay at the wall’s base, comfortably sprawling and soaking in the cooler temperature of the flagstones through his thick pelt, eyes half-lidded as the steady, constant sound of turning pages filled the air and set the mood for hours past.

The Hound opened one eye completely at hearing the scuff from his uncle’s boot, gaze blazing crimson—there and gone again—before that solitary eye closed once more and the Cŵn Annwn slumped down once more to rest against the mountain of books at his back.

“Well, isn’t this a cozy sight,” the elder Fae commented, voice droll even as he made his way closer to the silent pair. Derek huffed in answer but didn’t bother shifting back—or moving, either.

For his own part, Stiles paused for a moment and slipped a finger between the pages of his current book; something complicated and harsh flickered across his face, expression quicksilver fast and undecipherable, and Peter would be lying to himself if he didn’t find that particular look _intriguing_. It showed that the boy had already processed the information that Talia had given to him only hours before—or, perhaps, was still in the works of processing the overload when one took into consideration the sheer amount of books that the boy was currently surrounding himself with… but there was a distinct difference between Before and Now: and it made the Unseelie man curious as to what was running ‘round in the teen’s mind to prompt such an expression.

Disregarding the original intent of Peter’s greeting, Stiles rubbed his thumb along the spine of his book, features settling into something quietly thoughtful as his eyes lifted to meet the older man’s ocean-hued gaze. “…I’ve been thinking,” the boy began, and Peter crossed his arms over his chest to wait for Stiles to continue. Seeing that Peter was willing to remain silent in turn, Stiles began to continue, carefully feeling out the words to voice the thoughts that had been circling around and around in his mind for hours now: “The Unseelie Queen mentioned the War of Heaven against the angels and demons and how the Tuatha Dé Danann played into all of that. Hell, she was even willing to mention how one of my… my ancestors must have been. Must have been a Nephilim.”

Disbelief was a prominent emotion that threaded through the boy’s voice, and—perhaps—the reality of his own history hadn’t yet soaked in enough to become _truth_ for the teen.

Stiles paused for a moment, giving himself a small shake to continue going despite the ridiculousness that that particular history fact had become for him, and yet again spoke:

“But there’s still something that I don’t understand, Peter. Derek.” A furred ear swung in Stiles’ general direction, but that was the only visible reaction that Derek was willing to give to his charge; Peter, on the other hand, could _feel_ how the Hound’s attention shifted and sharpened, settling upon the boy in a razored sort of focus that only typically came right before a Hunt. “Why am I _here_? History lessons are awesome and all-- _but why am I here_? Why was Derek willing to step in to save me from a crossroads demon’s contract. I’m sure that the Daoine Sídhe aren’t willing to step in every time the Hellhounds come to collect. So that makes me different. _Why_?”

Peter’s head tilted to the side at the question posed, gesture quizzical and bird-like in the angle and smoothness of movement: alien and Other, different—paralleling so finely everything that Stiles had noticed about the Fae and was, slowly, becoming used to. Eventually, the older man answered, though it was to pose another question even as he flicked his fingers towards the books that Stiles was paging through. “You haven’t found your answer in any of those just yet?”

“No,” came the boy’s reply, and Stiles’ voice chilled in warning.

 _Such an odd, brilliant child_ , the Fae thought, tone of voice unerringly fond and amused both, even as he offered the amber-eyed teen a sly, fox-like smile. _Hours after such a reality-shattering reveal, and he’s already adjusting to things and working to see how he fits in to all of this._

There was something sparkling clinical about that type of ability to prioritize and process and _understand_ , something cold and reptilian and it _called_ to the dark, slumbering portions of Peter’s soul that was usually hidden away from sight—so carefully veiled that even Talia oftentimes forgot that it was there. But it stirred and shifted its attention, and it _wanted_ with a type of hunger that slid poisonously slow through the Fae’s veins.

Aloud, trickster’s smirk still painted across his mouth, Peter murmured: “You were saved—and brought here—because you’re the key figure in one of our oldest prophecies, sweet boy.”

“I’m not—“ Stiles began, immediately bristling, and Peter cut the boy off before any more denials could pour out of his mouth.

“You are. You _are_ because you are _the only one left_ ,” the blue-eyed man interrupted. Stiles’ hackles visibly raised at that, shoulders coming up to hunch around the teen’s shoulders, and Peter pressed relentlessly forward before the boy was able to open his mouth in protest. “Your mother’s line was the only one that had managed to escape the slow but methodical eradication that had occurred over _years_. By the time that you were born, you and your mother were the only Nephilim who had managed to avoid the Purge. With her death and your Spark awakening, _you_ are the only Nephilim left on earth. There is no one else.”

Stiles’ mouth pursed at that, and Peter could still see the angry defensiveness that haloed around the teen’s head. But curiosity and the never-ending desire for information—to satiate his curiosity—eventually coaxed a reply from the whiskey-eyed boy: “…Purge? What happened to all of the others, then?”

The question finally coaxed a more concrete response from Derek, however; the Cŵn Annwn rumbled a low growl in warning, and his eyes slowly opened to meet Peter’s glacial gaze.

The elder of the two had always lived on the edge of obeying orders and plucking at the loopholes found, if only to sit back and watch as others danced to his tune while chaos descended. Peter met Derek’s gaze evenly in turn, and his smile sharpened dangerous—thin enough to cut now.

“What you have to understand, darling boy,” Peter began, still meeting Derek’s crimson-eyed stare, “is that we all have a role to play—Heaven and Hell and the middleground that my people now fall into. Destiny, pre-determination, Fate, the cosmic genetic coding that makes us who we are. We can try and deviate from it all, but… well, it’s never worked all that well for those who push against the structures that they fall into.”

Stiles remained silent, expression surprisingly neutral as he watched and waited for the Fae to continue.

“ _You_ , however…” Peter spread his hands wide. “You deviate from all of those roles: you don’t fit and, thus, you’re the universe’s ultimate wild card. You have what all three sides are denied by the Powers That Be: _Free Will_. Choice. With no structure that you’re forced to stand within, with no role to fill, with everything coming down to your own decision… imagine the power that any side could gain by having you stand with them.”

Fingers tightened over the cover of the book and the boy’s knuckles whitened from the forcefulness of his grip. “So. I’m a weapon to you all, then.”

The older man’s smile became shark-like and hungry. “If you allowed yourself to become as such, then I suppose you would be. However, I don’t really picture you as the sort who would agree to be used in such a way. Because that would still be a _choice_ : join a side or not; the ability to step aside is yours, as well.”

Whiteness slowly bled from Stiles’ grip, and the boy relaxed his hold upon the book; expression still so carefully neutral—the challenge he posed to Peter in his attempts to read the teen—the amber-eyed boy’s gaze flickered off to the side, and he chewed on his lower lip in thought. The silence didn’t last long, though, and Derek’s ears flattened against his skull at Stiles’ next inquiry: “Not much of a choice in this particular case… right? I mean, sure. I could stand aside like you suggested—but I don’t think anyone would actually let me do so. Talia doesn’t really seem like someone who’d let an asset slip through her fingers. And the Hellhounds from before… they seemed rather determined in… in bringing me in.”

Peter tipped his head forward just slightly in silent agreement, and—at that gesture—watched as a muscle ticked in the alabaster line of the teen’s jawline.

“…so that leaves me with a choice that isn’t a choice at all.”

“Pick a side and stand with them, Stiles,” Peter cautioned, voice going low and dark. “Because no: you don’t have any other choice but that—the other two factions won’t give quarter on this, either.”

Perhaps there was a bit more white to Stiles’ eyes than normal, wide and shell-shocked, as the boy once more shifted to meet Peter’s gaze, but he still managed to meet the Fae’s gaze regardless of the choices—and the lack thereof—that the older man had just laid out for him. He swallowed, and Derek was able to taste the teen’s fear, thick and cloying in the back of the Hound’s throat, but Stiles still managed to press forward with a courage that echoed within the marrow of the Cŵn Annwn’s bones.

“That’s a death sentence, Peter. Derek and I were watching the practices from earlier—I _saw_ everyone fighting, all right? I saw. They all—you—have centuries, _millennia_ , worth of practice and warfare and experience and knowledge. I just turned sixteen—God knows how many days ago. How the hell do _any_ of you expect me to fight—to somehow genuinely contribute _anything_ of value? I’m a liability.”

Peter’s smile returned at the boy’s question, and it was the shape of it that had Derek jumping up abruptly, snarl slipping past bared teeth as he lunged towards Stiles to get between the amber-eyed teen and his uncle: immediately moving to become some sort of barrier between them both, a shield made from flesh and bone and blood. Peter, however… Peter was the one who had trained Derek—had trained all of Talia’s children and the rest of her people, as well—and the blue-eyed Fae had been ready for the other’s expected reaction.

Derek’s uncle was just that much faster.

He slid one of his daggers from its sheath, gripping the handle in a loosely familiar hold: muscles bunched, tensed—coiled as a snake was ready to strike—and then Peter _threw_. The weapon flew through the air, moving straight and true as it headed for the boy’s chest; Derek, as fast as he had tried, wouldn’t be quick enough and despite the effort that he made, the blade would still strike Stiles.

The teen cried out in surprise and fear, eyes going wide the moment that Peter threw the dagger at him; it was too late to dodge, he was too slow to duck—instinct ruled Stiles’ reactions, no matter how useless those gestures ended up being. He tossed up his hands in an attempt to block the incoming strike, signals for flight and fight mixing pointlessly within the shadowed echoes of his mind, and the teen _knew_ that he would be hurting a great deal very, very soon.

But there was nothing that he could do to stop this from happening.

And yet—

And yet.

Power flared within the center of Stiles’ chest, hotter than the burning heart of a star, and the teenage boy’s hands flared golden as the multi-changing hues of Stiles’ Spark manifested once more; it was just for a brief moment, there and gone again, but it was enough to keep the boy safe: a concussive wave moved out from the teen’s outstretched hands and caught weapon and blue-eyed Fae alike, flinging both back and through the air. Peter was lifted and tossed about like a ragdoll, out of control as the boy retaliated in turn. When the older man finally connected with one of the bookshelves many feet away, he landed with enough force that the wood cracked upon impact, shuddering and slowly falling in on itself as various texts went tumbling to the ground.

The Fae groaned mutedly in pain as he rolled onto his side, elbow bracing himself up so that he could sit. When Peter was once more upright—unsteady in his position, however, and comfortable enough with himself to admit that Stiles had packed quite the punch—he glanced his nephew and the boy’s way. Derek was crouched before the teen, eyes fully crimson as he met Peter’s gaze: with fangs bared and fur bristling, it was obvious that there was no way that the Cŵn Annwn intended to let his uncle anywhere near the boy anytime soon. And Stiles… his face was bleached of color, beauty marks stark against the bloodless tone of his skin, and Peter was able to _see_ just how his hands faintly trembled before fingers curled in towards his palms and fell back down to the boy’s lap.

There was a harsh lesson to be learned here: but necessary.

“I don’t expect you to match any of the warriors that you’ll end up facing—whoever they may be, whatever side they might fight on. Expecting that of you is impossible because you’re correct. Days of training will never match up against thousands of years of battle. What I _am_ counting on is that right there: instinct taking over and providing the edge that every side has been lacking up until now.”

Peter’s gaze was flinty and hard, glacial cool and as unforgiving as the deepest winter; no apology lurked in either eyes or expression—not when the older man wanted nothing more than to drive his point home.

Stiles released a shaky breath when silence stretched between them, eyes closing for a single, solitary moment. He set aside the book that had fallen to the floor when his hands jerked up to try and protect his chest and face, adding it to the piles that surrounded the enclosed, private space of the alcove. Turning his face away so that he didn’t have to look at Peter, the teen stood and headed towards the library’s exit with Derek following at his side, nose stretching out to gently press into the cupped shape of the teen’s hand. 

Reassuring and comforting: the brittle-edge contrast to Peter himself.

The Unseelie courtier laughed quietly in the silence that the library provided, ignoring how the sound echoed back something broken and sharp, aimed to hurt and rend and _bleed_. He slumped back onto the flagstones to stare up at the ceiling high above, outflung hand brushing against the handle of the dagger that had been thrown with unerring accuracy towards Stiles’ heart.

Peter didn’t pick it up.

+

The mattress dipped at Stiles’ back, though the teen didn’t bother rolling over onto his other side to see who it was that had sat down—he already knew, anyway, so it would have been a pointless enough gesture in the end. After all, Derek hadn’t once left the whiskey-eyed boy’s side after the series of _Big Reveals_. There was a comfort to the Cŵn Annwn’s presence now, a reassurance that sprung from shadowed twilight and the hours when Stiles had oftentimes laid awake at night and lost himself in thought—but, more than any of that, there was the memory that came of Derek attempting to get between Stiles and the blade that Peter had thrown.

It hadn’t worked, but Stiles had always been about intent more than outcome.

And Derek had attempted to protect him.

“Relying on the expectation that magic is somehow going to keep me and anyone else safe… it’s not a feasible endgame solution. It’s not sustainable; not really,” Stiles murmured to the wall before him—knowing, as well, that Derek was listening to him despite the silence that the Hound offered in turn.

The mattress dipped a little bit further into the springs below as more of the other’s weight settled behind the teen, and it wasn’t long after that a solid line of warmth came to rest just behind the amber-eyed boy. A hand set itself along the curve of Stiles’ waist and, when he offered no form of protest at the touch, carefully curled protectively over the sixteen year-old’s belly as Derek’s well-muscled bulk made itself comfortable and secure at Stiles’ back. Stubble brushed lightly against the teen’s nape, there and gone again, and he closed his eyes and allowed himself to move closer to the other man.

When had been the last time he had hugged another person? Been hugged in turn?

Curled up with Scott in either of their beds during one of their sleepovers?

When was the last time that Stiles had actually felt _safe_ , that there was someone out there who would protect his back, kept it covered, actually moved forward to catch a blow originally intended for the teen…?

Stiles… he couldn’t remember.

(Had it really been that long that he willingly felt so vulnerable around another?)

The teen shifted just enough to wrap long fingers around the meat of Derek’s forearm, using his hold as a sort of anchor to ensure that he stayed within the moment: no longer drifting, solid and grounded and _aware_ and mind buzzing with a multitude of various thoughts as he tried to come up with ways to address the problem that Peter had all but shoved his face against.

Here, now, in the quiet of the night and in the solitude and comfort that was slowly building between them both, Derek’s hold tightened just briefly, and he murmured, “For what it’s worth… I’m sorry for what my uncle did. It was wrong of him; if he had a point to prove, it should have been done a different way. What he did was cruel, Stiles.”

Stiles’ fingers spasmed as he clutched tight at Derek’s arm, and the boy blinked quickly to keep himself from crying at the kindness that layered the Cŵn Annwn’s words. Derek, who had been gruff and rough-edged from the moment that they had met—true, it hadn’t been under the best of circumstances—but who was also willing to offer an apology as the rest of the others were content to manipulate and maneuver Stiles to their hearts’ content, gazing upon him as nothing more than a valuable chesspiece necessary to win the game at large.

“Maybe,” the teen relented, voice both soft and carefully neutral as he responded to the Hound’s comfort. “But… that also doesn’t make his point any less valid. Just makes him a giant douchecanoe in the way he decided to make it.” Derek’s hold tightened once more at that, tucking Stiles closer to the solid expanse of his chest, and splayed fingers over the boy’s torso as Stiles resettled against him. “If I stay untrained—even if it’s a little bit, it’d still be more training than I have right now—and go out into the fight as I am… it’d only be a matter of time, Sourwolf. I’d be a dead man walking.”

Stiles felt as Derek gave a quiet sigh at that confession, though the Cŵn Annwn could do nothing to argue against it: logically, it was true. Pushing someone both untrained and young out onto a battlefield and expecting them to make some sort of difference—to expect that instinct and intrinsic talent would somehow be enough to turn the tides of war—was nothing more than a death sentence for everyone involved.

The Hound pressed in closer, and Stiles could feel when Derek finally rested his forehead against the boy’s nape. “…no one is as good as Peter—there’s a reason why he’s my mother’s Left Hand other than the fact that he’s her brother—but… in the morning, we’ll start running through some of the basic forms.”

It was the promise that finally made the whiskey-eyed boy slump completely against Derek’s body, knowing that he was finally going to be provided some sort of weapon other than _sheer, dumb luck_ , and—come what may—Stiles was determined to make it work for him. Maybe it’d be enough; may it wouldn’t be. But it was something more than what had originally been at his disposal and… well. The teen was willing to try, to accept what he could and roll with it. A smallest chance was still better than a _Kobayashi Maru_ because, in the end, a no-win scenario meant that there was no possible way that he’d ever get to go home to his dad again.

Hold still tight upon Derek’s arm, the Spark allowed his eyes to close. And to sleep.

+

“Hold.”

Stiles squawked in surprise at Derek’s sudden order, and the teen immediately began tripping over his feet as he attempted to freeze into place at the Cŵn Annwn’s command; awkwardness and the issue of too ungainly limbs that the teen was still growing into combining into a mess that ended with Stiles sprawled out on the floor. Thankfully, the amber-eyed boy had managed to toss his sword—blunted though it was—off to the side before going ass over teakettle, avoiding the whole issue of accidental impaling.

The teen’s head tilted backwards, throat a long, pale line as it stretched out above the open collar of his shirt, and Derek’s eyes abruptly jerked away to instead meet Stiles’ amused gaze. Tactfully, the sixteen year-old refrained from offering a comment and instead held up an arm so that the Cŵn Annwn could drag him back to his feet.

“Definitely more practice,” Stiles offered up helpfully, knowing full well that his analysis was an understatement at best (and woefully optimistic at best). The teen had been running through a handful of various sword-forms for the past several weeks and, if Derek was to be honest with himself, he’d managed to see little enough improvement on Stiles’ end of things.

But…

Stiles refused to give up, refused to back down: and, no matter how many times he ended up tumbling to the ground, he still got back up and went through the positions all over again, relentless and stubborn despite the clumsiness that would obviously one day become a fatal flaw for the boy.

Derek quietly sighed and reached out to cup a hand over the bend of the amber-eyed boy’s throat. There was something softer within his gaze that hadn’t been there at the start of their acquaintance, something fond, and the Hound took a moment to drain away the sting of elbows and knees landing wrong on hard-packed dirt before stepping back and gesturing the teen into position once more. “Again,” the Unseelie ordered, voice going sharp with command—because if Stiles insisted on this, then the least that Derek could do was make sure that it was done _right_ , correct to the smallest of details—and the boy’s shoulders straightened and went back, spine straightening as he once more assumed the first position to this particular formation.

Metal gleamed beneath the pseudo noontime sun, glinting as Stiles swung the blade this way at that: movements light and easy, for now, sleeker than silk and all the deadlier for this particular touch of grace.

…until Stiles tripped yet again and went tumbling down to the ground.

The sigh that slipped from Derek’s mouth was one that was becoming familiar to the Hound, and the moss-eyed man stepped forward for the second time within the past fifteen minutes to pull the boy to his feet to try, try, and try again until Stiles was finally swaying with exhaustion, muscles trembling with the day’s effort.

“Form Two,” Derek called out this time around, watching with a critical eye as the sixteen year-old shifted in a different stance—ignoring, too, the weight of a too-blue gaze settling upon them both: a weight that had become more and more familiar the past two weeks, though Peter never left the window that the Cŵn Annwn had one day caught his uncle watching them from.

Yet, no matter how often Peter actually _watched_ , he never made the effort of coming down and helping Derek prepare Stiles for the fight that was soon to be in the boy’s future—if the offhand comments the Cŵn Annwn sometimes heard from his mother actually ended up being true.

(He hoped that they weren’t. Didn’t want to see Stiles have to pick a side—sharp enough to notice that the teen had never commented on where he would stand when the inevitable fight drew him in—and didn’t want to watch the boy march off to war, either. Didn’t want to see him take a life for the first time, didn’t want to see moon-pale skin painted crimson with blood, didn’t want to take the chance that Stiles would most likely fall after being struck down by another fighter who had been preparing for this war for a thousand years and more.)

“ _Again_ ,” the Hound called out, voice a sharp crack that echoed through the training grounds.

And, _again_ , Stiles stood and resettled into a new form’s beginning stance. Over and over and over again.

+

When the sixteen year-old was finally dismissed for the day and headed off to the set of rooms that he had been allotted—fully planning on taking advantage of a long, hot soak while Derek was overseeing several responsibilities he’d been putting off for the past several days—opening the door to his suite to find Peter standing by the room’s sole table was not a sight that Stiles had been expecting. Perhaps not ever: certainly not after what had happened in the library.

The whiskey-eyed boy’s mouth pursed unhappily, and he very obviously debated whether or not it’d be best to step back and leave—to wait the older man out—but Peter stopped the retreat before it could fully form. “Wait,” the Fae began as he put down the book in his hands, reaching out towards Stiles’ backpedaling form. “Stiles. _Wait_.”

“…why?”

If the tone of his voice was layered in suspicion and barely concealed ire, Stiles honestly thought that he had good reason for it considering how they had last parted ways and, _now_ , the teen came upon the Unseelie waiting for him in his rooms.

“Because I owe you an apology,” Peter replied immediately in turn, surprisingly—shockingly—frank in his words, and there was no effort made to attempt to sugarcoat them into something kinder, more flattering to the Fae himself.

Stiles’ suspicion did not abate, however, and the teen just repeated himself: “ _Why_ , Peter?”

_Why are you bothering to apologize for something that you had no issue with rubbing in my face before?_

_Why apologize for the fact that you and the others were fully willing on watching me flounder, putting me up as the sacrificial lamb—intending on milking me for what you needed before discarding me when I was no longer of any use to you?_

_Why are you apologizing **now** , when what happened was weeks ago?_

Tempting, too, to say _too little, too late_ before the other man had the chance to get any farther in his attempt at an apology. But that last was something that Stiles carefully bit his tongue on before it had the chance to slip past his lips; burning bridges was always a favorite pastime of the teen’s and—well. As angry as he still was with Peter, he… didn’t want to burn this particular bridge for some reason. There was still enough of a pull, a curiosity that lingered—despite its luster dulling as each day went by—that kept Stiles silent and allowed the elder to continue:

“It is not an excuse, only an explanation,” Peter began, words coming slowly as he attempted to feel out and choose just what he wanted to say to the teen, aware enough of just how thin the ice was that he was currently walking on. “But things have stagnated here for quite some time—following a certain pattern, typically what my sister has approved of, and it’s been… difficult… breaking myself of that routine and that mindset. But the initiative that my nephew has taken, the training that he’s putting you through: it’s a different course of action than what was expected of him. And I approve.”

Stiles cocked his head to the side after Peter’s round-about speech, eyes going half-lidded in veiled thought even as he eyed the Unseelie man from beneath the thick line of his lashes. “So why the change of heart now?” the teen asked after a moment of silence, unwilling to pull the punches he aimed at Peter—petty enough that he was more than willing to admit to it, but still wanting the other man to hurt as much as the Fae had injured Stiles in turn.

The question had Peter grimacing slightly, but perhaps he truly meant his apology: in the end, he was still willing to answer the boy’s bluntly stated question. “In the short time that we had come into regular contact with one another, I found myself becoming fond of our interactions, sweet boy. So few within the court are still willing to trade barbs with me, and I found our bantering—refreshing.” He paused then, just for a moment, and then reached out to offer the book that he had brought to the boy. “The thought of you not surviving what will happen is… distasteful.”

Perhaps the confession would have been otherwise underwhelming to someone else— _from_ someone else—but Stiles had found an ease in companionship with Peter that had settled immediately between them, snark and all: there was a layering to words and sentences and banter that both and either picked apart like it was instinctive and secondhand nature to them, jagged edges within each body appealing to the other—and it was _easy_ to read between the lines of what Peter was actually saying:

_I don’t want to see you die._

The message was compounded further when Stiles finally accepted the text that Peter offered to him, fingers running absently over worn, leather edges before flipping the book over so that he could read the title on its spine. Catching sight of the words embossed there, the boy’s amber eyes opened wide in shock and surprise, and Stiles jerked his head upwards to meet Peter’s steady gaze.

Battle magic.

Peter was gifting Stiles with a book on _battle magic_.

(Stiles… Stiles could work with that.)

+

“Power—magic in its most basic form—is, in the end, all about _intent_. Words hold power, spells hold power, items and rituals and places themselves can all hold power; but, at its core, its very foundation, it all comes down to _intent_. To _will_ ,” Peter lectured, voice a lulling sort of rhythm that made Stiles’ eyes go half-lidded and sleepy as he just—basked and rode the ebb and flow of the older man’s words.

There was a pause, just long enough to cause the teen to blink himself more thoroughly awake, and the whiskey-eyed boy turned his head just enough to the side to meet the Fae’s less than impressed stare. Tone drier than Death Valley, the man idly asked: “…were you actively napping or did you happen to actually hear a word that I’ve been saying for the past twenty minutes?”

“I was listening,” the sixteen year-old reassured the other, defenses going up as Peter quirked an eyebrow in turn—expression settling into something that practically screamed his disbelief in the boy’s claim. 

If anything, however, that lack of faith had Stiles sitting upright; still meeting the Fae’s gaze, this time in challenge, Stiles snapped his fingers together: in turn, a blue-white flame _sparked_ into being, curling affectionately around the boy’s fingers before darkening in color until it was midnight dark and limed in violet. Its shape shifted, moving from indistinct—nothing more than a solitary bit of fire—and became more and more detailed until it was a cobra’s assessing gaze that met Peter’s own as its hood flared in warning.

“…very good, Stiles,” Peter eventually commented, offering praise for a job well-done—despite the fact that the demonstration went over and beyond the basics that the Fae had initially been intending on introducing the teen to.

“I’ve always liked Harry Potter,” Stiles said in explanation, stroking a finger affectionately along the underside of the fire snake’s jaw and throat. “ _Fiendfyre_ was always such an interesting spell. I used to wish that JKR had spent more time explaining it and bringing it into the books. And this isn’t the same, but… close enough to make it fun.”

The cobra darted its tongue out to taste the air, never once looking away from Peter’s glacial gaze, and its flame-created body burned brighter, hotter, and finally allowed itself to burn up until the teen was holding up nothing but air and ash and soot. Stiles’ attention lingered on his empty hands just a moment longer before placing his hands back in his lap, body shifting just enough to once more face Peter to grant the older man his full attention once more.

“…it’s easy,” the boy murmured, low enough that the Daoine Sídhe was barely able to catch Stiles’ words. “All the books that you’ve been having me read talk about how difficult the spells are supposed to be, how much I’m supposed to struggle to bring them to life. But… it’s easy. Easy as breathing.”

“I suspect that it has something to do with your nature,” came the older man’s reply after a long moment of silence. “Power and magic and diluted touches of the divine are remnants that the Daoine Sídhe, demons, and angels have all been gifted with. With you, though…? Somehow that briefest kiss of divine combined with humanity’s choice, their Free Will, and sparked into something that is true Grace. There’s power—and then there is _you_.”

Stiles met that bright blue gaze for a long moment or two before flicking his own away, twist of his mouth already giving away the denial that was to come. “Peter, I’m not—“

The Fae held up a hand to cut the boy off before Stiles could truly begin. “The universe slumbers within your bones, sweet boy. And I do mean that literally.”

Fingers flexed and relaxed their grip in Stiles’ lap and, if anything, the tense unhappiness to his mouth deepened even further as the teen tried to process Peter’s meaning. “I don’t understand.”

To answer the silent question that Stiles didn’t voice, the Unseelie Fae reached out—moving slow enough to allow Stiles to pull away should the teen wish to—and Peter cupped the edge of a sharp jawline within his hand, tilting the boy’s head enough to bare the side of his face to the man’s gaze. A fingertip traced over the scattering of moles over cheek and jaw, and Peter whispered: “Crux—the Southern Cross.” Another careful turn of the teen’s head, another game of connect-the-dots with Stiles’ beauty marks, and this time the Fae said: “Ophiuchus, the serpent-bearer.” Again: “Vulpecula, the fox.” And again: “Scorpius, the scorpion.” And again: “Ursa Major, the great bear.” And _again_ : “Orion.”

The last was pointed out as Peter traced Stiles’ brachial vein along the teen’s forearm, ending the journey in a possessive clasp of Stiles’ wrist—drinking in the frantically beating pulse against his fingers even as the whiskey-eyed boy curled his own into a loose fist, limb slightly trembling in the Fae’s grasp.

“Galaxies and constellations have etched themselves in the marrow of your bones, in the foundation of your soul,” the Unseelie continued and tugged gently to bring Stiles that much closer to him. “Now that your power has awakened…? Anything is possible so long as you _will_ it. Of course the spells come easy to you, sweet boy. This is what you _are_ now.”

“If it’s apparently so easy for me, then, why are you bothering to teach me something that’s supposed to come naturally, anyway?” Stiles asked in turn and tilted his head up that smallest bit to continue meeting Peter’s bright blue gaze. Something flared hot and bright within those glacial depths, and the Fae’s fingers curled tighter around the teen’s wrist—and yet still, now, the boy didn’t try to pull away from the Unseelie’s hold.

“Because never forget that any little bit extra available to you in your arsenal can only ever help, not hinder. And I want to ensure that you’ll walk away from the battlefield when this is all over.”

“Why?” Stiles asked in reply—always seeming to default to that one particular question when it came to the both of them: _why?_ Why this, why that: just… _why_? There were boundaries that both had poked and prodded from the first meeting and still continued to press against, even now.

Peter’s answer to Stiles’ inquiry, however, came as the Fae brought the teen’s captured wrist upwards, refusing to release the whiskey-eyed boy from his grasp; the Unseelie pressed a kiss to Rigel, the brightest star within the Orion constellation, and Stiles could feel the telling prick of too-sharp teeth scraping lightly against the vulnerable skin of his forearm.

“I do believe you already know the answer to that, sweet boy.”

+

War was brewing.

It was something that Stiles was able to understand intellectually—knew that it was coming considering the warnings that were laid out before him, ready to be seen and understood if he just glanced its way—but there was something that differed between the knowing in an abstract, academic sort of comprehension and the _understanding_ that came in a visceral reaction as he was plunged in the middle of things.

Despite the Hellhound attack that had happened at the start of it all, the teen’s _knowing_ was still too distant, too buried beneath the various preparations he was trying to ready himself for: believing, right or wrong, that things would spiral out of control and end in a ‘maybe’ or ‘someday,’ but dawning realization that ‘someday’ was ‘today’ was still too far off from Stiles.

The particular factor finally shattered itself to less than dust the first time he came across a visiting Seelie court diplomat and her accompanying delegation. The strangers moved in a wave of bright sunshine that illuminated the shadows that clung to the hollows hidden throughout the Unseelie Court’s labyrinthine corridors, and Stiles briefly felt the peak of summer’s heat brush across his cheeks as the entourage stepped past him and into the Great Hall where Talia must have been waiting for them. The diplomat that must have been sent by the Seelie Court’s King was barefoot and golden-skinned, long dark hair confined to intricate war braids as they swayed back and forth across the shine of her armor. A pair of twins flanked her sides, standing as an honor guard as the warrior woman made her way deeper into her one-time enemy’s home.

Before the group disappeared completely into the Great Hall and the doors closed shut with a resounding clang behind them, the last of the summer-touched Fae glanced back towards Stiles. The Seelie girl grinned sharply at him, blonde hair as bright as the noontime sun: blood and battlelust were more than readily evident in her dark gaze, and Stiles could do nothing but hold her stare even as the hall’s doors eased closed.

The visitors left him feeling distinctly… unsettled.

+

It was hard keeping track of the time when electricity was something that the Unseelie either had no access to or turned their noses up at using; it meant that Stiles had to rely on others to be able to tell the time, to know what hours had passed between meals or even while he slept—day and night weren’t immediately discernible, either, considering the fact that the teen’s rooms had no windows.

It was late, though, that much Stiles knew—knew it was late and that midnight had most likely come and gone long ago judging from the groggy, stuffed-cotton feeling of his head and the way that the boy’s limbs dragged across the sheets as the bed dipped just before him.

Derek huffed a quiet breath, grumbling at being woken up before it was necessary more than readily evident in the unhappy growl that rumbled up from the center of his chest; the interloper was a familiar presence, however, and the Hound didn’t bother expressing himself any further than that: instead focusing on falling back to sleep, curled protectively against the thin line of Stiles’ back.

Fingers brushed along the edge of the teen’s jawline, calloused from centuries of swordplay and battle and flipping through roughly-hewn pages from texts: the touch lingered at the tip of Stiles’ chin, pausing for just a moment before a thumb swiped lightly over the Cupid’s bow curve of the boy’s lower lip.

Drawn back towards consciousness, Stiles opened a solitary eye to squint upwards, meeting Peter’s neon gaze that burned as bright as a magnesium flame in the dim lighting of the boy’s suite. Perhaps the older man’s presence would have once raised the hairs along the teen’s nape, would have put him on edge—but Stiles had changed the longer that he had remained in the Unseelie Court, the more he had grown into his power.

Grunting unhappily at being awoken, Stiles took hold of Peter’s arm and gave a solid _pull_ to drag the older man into the still too-large bed. Ignoring the pointed _Oomph!_ that the Fae gave as he landed haphazardly upon the sheets—Peter’s fault, Stiles was of the opinion of; if he hadn’t wanted to be manhandled, then the Fae should have shown up while he and Derek were settling down for bed instead of showing up during the witching hour and waking up all pertinent (and sleepy) parties involved—Stiles instead just arranged Peter to his satisfaction and resettled between uncle and nephew.

Silence stretched like taffy amongst the three of them, pulling far and thin and sagging beneath the weight of gravity before eventually breaking:

“…your bony shoulder is digging into my bicep. It’s cutting off the circulation,” Peter muttered and ignored the amused snort that came from Stiles’ opposite side.

“Then maybe you should have arrived sooner,” was the boy’s answer, wicked amusement more than readily apparent in tone of voice and the inflection of his words. Stiles also didn’t bother moving. “Maybe next time you’ll know better and show up when we’re getting ready for bed.”

Peter sighed quietly and resigned himself to the fact that he’d be dealing with a tingling, dead arm come morning.

+

“So you’re the Spark that the Queen managed to squirrel away from Heaven and Hell when both came calling.”

Stiles blinked slowly and glanced up from the text that he had been skimming through, searching for a specific spell that Peter had mentioned offhand during their last session. He didn’t have much hope of actually managing to track it down—if the teen was completely honest with himself, he had the feeling that the spell was located in one of the books that the blue-eyed Fae kept in his private library. But, regardless or not of Stiles being able to track down the spell, the interruption was an unexpected one.

It hadn’t taken the sixteen year-old long to realize that, while he was holed up in the library or in the middle of training with either Derek or Peter, the other members of the court tended to leave them be. The Daoine Sídhe gave him the space and the time to learn what was necessary and only tended to approach him and his teachers when it was obvious that they were done for the day (it was around that time, as well, that Lydia typically showed up with the claim that she had been in the general vicinity, regardless of the fact that she was typically carrying poultices aimed at healing wounds specific to that day’s lessons). The careful avoidance was extensive to the point that Stiles had figured out weeks back that Talia herself had something to do with that—either that or the Heirs Apparent, Cora and Laura.

Being approached now, when it was obvious that the teen was a man on a mission—as fruitless as it would most likely turn out to be—was a difference in the routine that he had established with countless others that the teen now spent his days with.

Discovering that it was several members of the Seelie Court’s diplomatic group that chose to interrupt him from his studying… if he was honest with himself, Stiles didn’t find that surprising. He slipped a finger between the pages that he was reading as a makeshift bookmark, closing the text as far as it would go, and offered the trio his undivided attention.

There was the young blonde woman from before, hair a thick riot of curls that reached the small of her back and dark gaze intent as she looked Stiles up and down. To her left stood another blond—this one a young man whose cherubic features would have fit perfectly amongst the Heavenly brethren left behind generations ago, though it was the cool look in his eyes that gave lie to his seemingly innocent appearance. Finally, to the girl’s right, stood another man who looked just as young as the two blondes—though Stiles had learned early on just how easily appearances could deceive. The other apparent teen was tall and thick, muscled in the same way that linebackers were, and the darkness of his skin had him blending in with the shadows that filled the library in the late afternoon. He was calm and still in a way that the other two weren’t, and this Fae stood back to watch and wait even as his two companions stepped forward in an attempt to crowd and intimidate Stiles when the amber-eyed teen hadn’t bothered replying to the Seelie female’s obvious comment.

“Well? Didn’t you hear me?” the blonde girl tried again and reached out to wrap her fingers around Stiles’ forearm. For just the briefest of moments, her glamour dropped—or maybe the teen was able to take a peek as to what lay beneath the illusion—and something sharp and feral and fey, features fine-boned and brittle enough to cut like a knife, flickered into being.

There was a violence that promised a blood-tinged maelstrom hidden within the darkness of her gaze, and all Stiles could see was _trouble_. Before her fingers could actually grip onto the teen, Stiles smacked the book he was currently reading onto the top of her hand to keep her from actually touching him.

“ _Rude_ ,” Stiles snapped out, tone scolding her for the unwanted touch that he hadn’t originally asked for. Even as the strike connected and the word rang out through the air, both combined into a small, concussive blast that forced the blondes backwards; both ended up losing their footing to tumble to the ground below: all three Seelie Fae’s eyes went wide in surprise at Stiles’ display of power.

Eventually, however, the girl’s head tipped back as she began to laugh, and the sound echoed eerily with the coarse cries of a murder of crows. As the laughter began to trickle off, the girl offered the amber-eyed teen a grin that was all teeth, filled with predatory intent. “ _Oh._ I think that I’m definitely going to like you,” she admitted while the boy who had remained standing muffled an amused snort behind a broad hand.

“Down, Erica,” the dark-skinned Fae commented drily before stepping forward and offering a friendly hand to Stiles. “You can call me Boyd.”

And… well, while it wasn’t the ease of his friendship with Scott—hard to compete against considering the fact that they had known each other since pre-school and after Stiles had accidentally bulldozed over the sandcastle that his soon-to-be best friend had been working on all recess long—anything else would have been nearly impossible in competing against the history that the whiskey-eyed teen shared with Scott McCall. But… maybe this could perhaps be the start of something new, something different; it wasn’t healthy, and this was something that Stiles was fully aware of, in keeping himself so distant from the rest of the court—of not bothering to reach out to make new connections to alleviate the sense of disconnect that still lingered at night and after Peter and Derek had drifted off to sleep.

Loneliness was a staticy constant in the shadows of Stiles’ mind, amplified by the knowledge that war truly was coming. It would be—nice—to make the steps in forming connections with those he’d eventually be setting out onto the battlefield with.

Chin tipping upwards, Stiles offered Boyd a smile in turn and shook the proffered hand. “I’m Stiles,” he answered. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Boyd.”

The two blondes shared a silent glance that spoke volumes without a single word ever crossing their lips—but then they, too, shifted to stand and began to make their way closer for introductions, following Boyd’s lead with open hands and names for Stiles to call them.

It wasn’t Scott—it wasn’t anywhere close to the friendship that he had with Scott—but it was something more than Stiles had before, and a tight knot that had lodged itself within his chest slowly began to loosen: and Stiles _breathed_.

+

There was a telling sort of expectation that came when one truly knew better: knew that this wouldn’t last, that the truce wouldn’t hold, that the peace was an illusion that others bought in to because considering anything else was both painful and ugly. Stiles’ mother’s illness hadn’t progressed very far before the little boy that he had used to be willingly took the blinders from his gaze. Things were the way that they were, and here-- _now_ \--the teen just waited for the other shoe to drop.

Days passed, weeks, too—and the whiskey-eyed boy lingered and waited, preparing himself as quickly and as thoroughly as he could for the end that he could feel coming within the marrow of his bones. Eventually, one day, _soon_ … the other shoe would drop.

He knew that he wasn’t ready—how could he be?—but Stiles had _also_ learned early on that life wasn’t fair; it was as it was, changing and with odds tipping to and fro depending upon chance and will and determination. But there was only so much that could be changed, and this…? The heavy feeling within the foundation stones of his soul said that nothing would stay the war that was to come. Too much had been building up for too long, and there would be nothing left for him to do except ride out the storm and hope that _something_ that he had learned would be enough.

(It wouldn’t be, if Stiles was honest with himself. It wouldn’t ever come close to being enough, but there was nothing else he could do if everyone around him expected him to fight. To _not_ fight just ended up a quicker death sentence and, either way, the teen didn’t want to think of the repercussions that lay in store for his father.)

Regardless of his preparation and the wish for anything other than what was to come—regardless of the fact that none of this was _fair_ , that he had already lost his mother, that he was only _sixteen years old_ : regardless of any of that and so much more, Stiles knew what was coming and braced himself accordingly.

The other shoe dropped.

Stiles didn’t need the official announcement that the truce between all of the sides had finally failed and shattered to pieces as he stepped into the Queen’s private study, a room that he had only been in once before. Talia, Peter, Cora, and Laura were all crowded around a darkly stained table, gesturing amongst themselves and towards a large parchment that had been spread across the top, its corners weighed down by whatever bits had been near at hand—an ancient-looking text, what looked like half of a bookend pair, one of Peter’s daggers, the pouch that Cora typically kept at her hip.

Not a word needed to be said to the whiskey-eyed teen: he knew what this was. A war council.

The boy paused for just a moment in the room’s doorway, trying his best to ignore how the world had gone grayscale as the bottom of his stomach dropped far and away, nausea the only real feeling that came to Stiles through the numbness—that, and the fear.

Peter glanced upwards as he caught sight of Stiles’ movements from the corner of his gaze, and while the look in the older man’s eyes was understanding—there was no sympathy, not when he’d been training the teen nearly every day in magic and sparring and when they both knew that this moment was eventually coming.

None of it made this any easier, however.

Stiles swallowed roughly, shifting just enough to clasp his hands at the small of his back—using the gesture, as well, to hide the trembling of his limbs and wishing that he had Derek here with him, too. But the Hound had obviously not been invited to this particular meeting, so… the amber-eyed teen would make due. He’d stood before on his own, had been straightening his spine and refusing to bow from the moment that he realized that his mom wasn’t getting any better—and Stiles had little enough choice in this, anyway. Not really.

“You requested my presence here, Your Majesty?” Stiles asked, picking and choosing his words carefully even as Peter continued watching silently, expression so blank that the glacial-eyed man may as well have been carved from marble.

One by one, the women in the room also lifted their gazes: Talia with her midnight-dark eyes, filled with the endlessness that became the brittle bones standing within the space between stars; Laura, gaze burning with bloody light to match her younger brother; Cora, straddling the divide between Light and Dark—one eye as brightly crimson as her sister’s while the other was the pure white that came at the heart of a star, striking a path through the shadows and the creeping night.

Power lay heavy within the air amongst the war council, and Stiles could feel it settling over his shoulders, pushing down down _down_ in an effort to make him bow before these creatures that he still did not understand—perhaps never would.

Talia smiled slowly as Stiles stepped forward once more, blinking once—mystery tucking away beneath a finely stitched human suit, nevermind the fact that the boy could still see the Other where the jagged edges allowed her true self to peek through.

“Stiles. It’s time for you to choose.”


	4. Chapter 4

** PART IV. **

_“A mind not to be changed by place or time._  
_The mind is its own place, and in itself_  
_Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n.”_  
― John Milton,  **Paradise Lost**

+

_There weren’t a lot of memories that Stiles had of his mother._

_So many things had become painful by the end, and it was sometimes just easier to… forget. To let go, to not remember—to let the flame of his love die, to put it in the ground to remain with her body and whatever tatters of her ghost that still lingered at her grave. The teen loved her, always would, but the hurt had grown so strong, so encompassing that Stiles had needed to numb himself to keep the pain at bay._

_So, no: there weren’t a lot of memories that Stiles had of his mother._

_Some, though… some remained, lingering in the shadowed recesses of his mind—refusing to be uprooted no matter how long and how hard the teen tried to rid himself of the pain of what had been and never would be again. Those memories stayed and dug themselves deep until they were all that the boy had left of Claudia Stilinski._

_A crooned lullaby hummed into the hairs at the nape of his neck as a four year-old Stiles wept with misery as he fought off the flu._

_The mischievous slant of his mother’s mouth as she snuck him some chocolate chip cookie dough the moment that his father’s back was turned._

_The scent of jasmine, night blooming and sensual in its headiness—breathing deep the floral scent as Stiles pressed his nose against the bend of his mother’s throat, skin warm against the fuzzy plane of his cheek._

_Memories, scattered from all points of his life, of Stiles’ time with her--_

_But, looking back, perhaps it shouldn’t have been that surprising to know that the strongest, most vivid memory that Stiles had of his mother was this, a foreshadowing and a forewarning of what was to come once the countdown began and his time ran out:_

_Six years-old and so incredibly **angry** , incandescent in his righteous fury as Stiles stomped away from his mother as she let them back into the house. The emotion bubbled up beneath his skin, lighting the boy from the inside out until Stiles’ entire world was red red **red**. He thudded his way up the staircase to get away from his mother, steps too loud in the otherwise silence of their small home, and it was only a short time later that Claudia heard the tell-tale sound of a bedroom door slamming behind her fuming son._

_The dark-eyed woman sighed and shook her head before heading into the kitchen to finish preparing for that night’s dinner; she’d been interrupted before the woman had a chance to get too far along in gathering together the necessary supplies—racing down to the school when Claudia got the call that Stiles had been in a fight and would be suspended for two weeks because of it._

_(He wouldn’t apologize, either, she knew. Not when the Whittmore boy had been consistently targeting Scott for weeks at this point; Stiles had become a powder keg of restrained and compressed fury and, though she didn’t approve of the fact that her son had given in to his anger… neither could she really be surprised at the fact that Stiles had finally blown up. It had only become a matter of time, not when her son’s eyes blazed honeyed gold and he spent hours staring at the corner of his bedroom, cheeks flushed red with sparking emotion.)_

_Not so surprising, either:_

_Perhaps a little bit over an hour after the duo had come home, Claudia felt a much-smaller body press up against her thigh while thin arms came up to wrap tightly around her waist. She washed her hands and toweled them dry, only then lowering an arm so that she could cup the back of her son’s head and threaded her fingers through his still silky hair. Stiles, in response, turned to press his face more thoroughly against her hip, little fingers tightening their grip upon her shirt._

_”I’m sorry, Matka. I was being mean to you because I was angry. I shouldn’t have done that ‘cause you taught me better,” the mole-kissed child murmured against his mother’s belly, and Claudia sighed quietly at the apology; she turned just enough to wrap her arms tightly around Stiles’ skinny shoulders, allowing the boy to keep his face pressed against her stomach—not wanting to see her expression of disappointment, which… Claudia couldn’t really fault her son for: sneaky of him to attempt to do so, not that she would actually let him get away with it._

_”Kochanie,” Claudia murmured even as she grasped her son’s chin between her fingers, forcing his face away from her stomach—head tilting upwards so that the boy’s bronze-touched gaze caught her own. “You know what I’m most upset about. You **know better**. Why did you hit Jackson when you knew that it was wrong?”_

_Stiles made a face at the question, expression screwing up unhappily, though he knew well enough not to try and hide his face from his mother again. His little fingers curled once more in Claudia’s t-shirt, tugging fretfully as words came tumbling out of the child’s mouth: “I know better. I know it was wrong, Matka. But Jackson… he wouldn’t leave me ‘n’ Scott alone! He kept saying all of these mean things and followed after us when we tried playing somewhere else at recess and he wouldn’t stop, even when I asked him to! He wouldn’t go away ‘n’ he wouldn’t stop ‘cause he’s a **bully** and so I punched him like I saw Batman do! ‘Cause Batman **and** Captain America don’t like bullies, Matka!”_

_Well, that certainly answered Claudia’s question of **where** Stiles had learned how to punch so well—and she made a note, too, to ensure that John didn’t let their son watch any more superhero movies until he was at least a little bit older… or learned to control his temper (though the dark-haired woman wasn’t planning on holding her breath for the latter to happen first)._

_Claudia sighed quietly and pulled away from her son’s grasping fingers, squatting down and carefully balancing on the balls of her feet: eye-level, now, with Stiles and meeting his defiant gaze with her own solemn one._

_”Kochanie,” the boy’s mother began, reaching out to cup the baby fat of his cheek against the palm of her hand. “You can’t do things like that.”_

_”…why not, Matka?”_

_A slow-burning sort of rage flickered through Claudia’s eyes at the question, lighting her gaze and turning her eyes a true gold, and Stiles’ own widened with shock and awe and perhaps a little bit of fear, regardless of the fact that his mother’s touch remained gentle and loving against the curve of his face. “We are creatures created from fire and wrath, my darling,” the woman whispered. “Our anger has the ability to burn the whole world to ash and dust. You should try not to get angry, kochanie. It’s not… good.”_

_The sulky turn to Stiles’ mouth smoothed out, though now it was his brow that furrowed in child-like confusion. He reached up as his mother fell silent, wrapping his small fingers around the delicate bones of Claudia’s wrist. “Mama?” the boy began, switching from Polish to English. “…what do you mean?”_

_Claudia, however, didn’t answer her son: pressed a kiss to his furrowed forehead and then once more stood to return her attention to the preparation needed for dinner that night. Stiles didn’t press further, instead keeping close to his mother’s warmth and yet again hiding his face against the taut line of her belly._

_\--looking back on the memory **now** , on the other hand… Stiles understood._

+

“You still haven’t announced your decision.”

Stiles flinched slightly at the accusation that came lightly drolled, Peter’s words quiet though still somehow managing to fill up the space within the teen’s assigned bedroom. He paused while going through the few belongings he’d been given from the moment that he woke up amongst the Unseelie and spared a glance over his shoulder to meet the older man’s neon-streaked gaze.

Derek stood just behind his uncle’s shoulder, expression carefully neutral and letting Peter ask the questions of Stiles. The features that were normally so expressive—even though the Hound oftentimes let his eyebrows do most of his emoting—and were now so purposefully blank… it made Stiles _angry_ , the fact that it was directed towards him: that both men knew the fear that still trembled through his limbs late at night at the thought of the battle, the _war_ , that was soon to come—and still they pressed him to choose a side.

This was a fight that Stiles hadn’t had anything to do with, hadn’t _known_ about until the Unseelie had brought him here—throughout his entire visit, no matter how hard he had searched, all the sixteen year-old had been offered was the barest bones of an explanation. Everything had always remained vague, most others so incredibly _un_ helpful, and Stiles didn’t even _truly_ know what anyone was fighting _for_.

Had the war been foretold so long ago that these creatures now just figured that it was a given, that there was no choice—that it would happen regardless and they’d be called out to battle with no real knowledge of the how or the why or the belief in a cause to set their hearts upon a goal to aim towards…?

What was the _point_ of all of this?

What was the _reason_ for Stiles’ own presence?

“Why am I expected to make one?” the teen shot back, angry and not afraid to hide that particular fact. “This—any of this—has _nothing_ to do with me! I was dragged into this without any consent!”

It didn’t seem possible, but Derek’s expression shuttered even further, and Peter’s icy gaze went hooded and intent. There was a sense of danger around the other man, quietly snake-like and heavy with the promise of venomed kisses, and the Fae stepped closer to purposefully crowd into Stiles’ space. “Is that really true, though?” the older man asked, voice deceptively light—and Stiles had come to _know_ the other well enough to slightly tense up for the strike that had yet to truly come. “After all, from the rumors I’ve heard, you were more than willing to get involved in all of this eight years ago when it was your mother’s life on the line, sweet boy.”

All of the color leeched from Stiles’ face at that particular comment, bleeding away until the boy became a being carved from the palest of alabaster and purest bronze: gaze _burning_ from his too-pale face. “ _Don’t._ Don’t go there, Peter,” the teen warned, voice going low and raspy.

The tone was enough to have Derek’s eyes widening slightly and the Cŵn Annwn’s attention flicked over to Peter, just for a moment, before carefully murmuring: “…Uncle…” There was a world of caution layered within that single word, but Peter easily dismissed it as his focus sharpened upon the would-be mortal before him.

“Why not?” Peter asked in turn, poking at and prodding at the still-raw wounds that Stiles had been carrying for years. “It’s true, isn’t it? You were willing to sell your soul to save your mother—and, no matter how hard you try to ignore it, the fact remains that you were willing to give it all up before. It doesn’t matter if that contract fell through because it still managed to get its hooks in you and trigger the events that have led to this point. These past eight years, Stiles? You haven’t seen it, not yet, but we’ve been at _war_.”

The amber-eyed teen’s fingers curled into the fabric of the shirt that he held in his hands, refusing to answer—to comment upon Peter’s statement—and glanced away to glare at the wall opposite him. A muscle ticked along the edge of the boy’s jawline, and the scent of Stiles’ helpless fury lay thick within the room and sour enough to choke on, acrid and smothering Derek’s more sensitive nose. 

Unrelenting, unforgiving, Peter continued: “You can make your decision now. Or you can make your decision on the battlefield after whoever manages to catch you drags you out and deposits you in the midst of the fighting. There is no escaping it: prophecy or no, your very heritage guarantees that you’re involved. You can’t stick your head in the ground and ignore it until it goes away.”

“ _I know that_!” Stiles yelled, fury and frustration both finally bubbling over as he threw his shirt at Peter; it landed far short of the older man, tumbling to the ground at his feet, and the teen wrapped his arms around his middle in an attempt to offer himself comfort—ignoring the trembling that still wracked his limbs, knowing that very little, if anything, would manage to dull the fear that coursed through him. Again, Stiles said: “I know that.”

Derek finally stepped forward, offering a hand towards the teen: expression still so very, very blank and yet his moss-colored gaze all the more expressive because of it. “You have no more time,” the Hound said, picking and choosing his words with a sort of caution that seemed unnatural to Derek, that Stiles had never seen him do before. “My mother is starting to gather together her warriors. The Wild Hunt’s call will come soon after that. Stiles… you’ve been training with us all this time; you’ve known that there was no way to keep yourself separate.”

An ugly thought slipped its way into the teen’s mind at that last specific comment, suspicion and dread settling along the bottom of his belly to weigh everything down and spark nausea and vertigo both. It wasn’t the first time that the thought had occurred to Stiles, but… with the fact that both Fae were pressing him to choose, to decide under whose banner he’d be marching into battle under… it took root and burrowed deep, and there was nothing that the teen could do to look away—not with the _What if?_ so strongly latched onto him.

“And in all of those training sessions, neither of you pressed for me to make that choice—not like you’re doing now,” Stiles pointed out, pale and washed out even as that inferno of power spun out of control within him. Weeks perhaps even months—unsure and unknown considering how time moved differently within the Sídhe Court’s home—and both men had kept their silence, never once edging upon the topic.

Derek’s brow furrowed at the words, confused and not immediately understanding what point Stiles was trying to make by bringing up such a fact; his gaze shifted to Peter, hoping that his uncle would be able to make heads or tails of that statement—and he flinched at how the older man’s blue gaze had gone arctic in temperature, flinty as it met Stiles’ own.

“And now you can’t help but wonder if my sister sent us to seduce you, to gain your favor and heart and bed—if only to guarantee that your choice would be with us once you were finally forced to make your decision.”

_Why else would you—either of you—have chosen me otherwise?_ Stiles pondered within the confines of his mind but couldn’t bring himself to voice aloud: not when the Fae’s answer had the chance to break him further either way. And yet… why else would two insanely attractive men, so much older than Stiles himself, smarter and stronger and _better_ , even bother to glance his way—let alone make motions towards slowly building _something_ amongst the three of them?

Stiles was ungainly and awkward, had the tendency of focusing either too much or too little, ran his mouth off at the worst of times and sarcasm seemed to be a trait that was embedded into his very DNA; the teen knew that he wasn’t a catch in any way, shape, or form—high school had been enough to emphasize that fact day after day after day. And yet, suddenly, he was supposed to believe that _Derek_ and _Peter_ saw something in him that they found attractive, were drawn to…?

How likely was _that_ , truly?

“I’m not anything that anyone has ever wanted,” the whiskey-eyed teen said, tightening his hold around his middle. “The best I’ve ever gotten is that _give it time; you’ll grow into your looks_ or _they don’t appreciate your personality_. But then there’s you— _both_ of you—and Talia has always made it clear that she wants me fighting for the Daoine Sídhe. So what else am I supposed to believe…?”

Peter’s face was cold—so incredibly cold, glacial and sharp-featured as his rage dropped further in temperature—and his words were bladed enough to cut to the marrow. “You _could_ believe that I would never tolerate my sister to whore myself out. And the last time she tried with Derek… ah, well: it didn’t go quite as she had originally planned it to.”

The Cŵn Annwn jerked back at that, expression absolutely gutted as he stared at Peter with wide eyes, barely audible whine slipping past his lips. Pain was obvious in his gaze, betrayal at the older man’s callousness creeping in at the edges—and rage, too, at the reminder of the multitude of mistakes that had happened _before_ , had made Derek more guarded and careful and cautious in his attentions.

Ignoring his nephew for now, Peter’s attention remained upon Stiles, focus intense in its weight as the man’s features slowly bled into something otherworldly and eldritch in nature:

“Choose, Stiles. Or the universe will find a way to decide _for_ you.”

+

_Midnight crept slowly on by, hours bleeding away in the darkness of the teen’s room._

_There was a sense of security here, nestled amongst the shadows, that hadn’t been there before: Stiles had always been afraid of the dark, even more so after his mother’s death—when the unknown had edged into the outskirts of his life, unveiling themselves to his young gaze and failing him, too, in the promises whispered while twilight limed the world._

_There was always a sense of distrust for the dark after that:_

_And yet…_

_And yet._

_Stiles pressed his nose deeper against the bend of Peter’s throat, gaze going lidded as the Fae’s warmth soaked in through his bedclothes; Derek was a solid weight at the teen’s back, arm hooked carefully over Stiles’ waist even as laxly curled fingers brushed for reassurance against the vulnerable line of Peter’s belly. Limbs were entwined, tangling with one another—and it was here that Stiles finally allowed himself to feel safe._

_He knew that he shouldn’t, that there were still too many unanswered questions that lingered at the back of his mind, rearing themselves upwards and coming to the forefront when things were like this: quiet and lazy and edging into sleep._

_Whispers came, heavy with warning and uncertainty: and it was true that Stiles didn’t understand any of this, had been tossed into the middle of a situation that had millennia’s worth of history, politics, and philosophy that he was stumbling through like a bull in a china shop—didn’t understand, either, the relationship that Peter and Derek had between the both of them with how easily they brought Stiles into the middle. Didn’t understand, still, what the Fae wanted of him or expected of him even as the teen welcomed both into his bed--_

_(And his heart, as well, though that was a particular thought that Stiles wanted to avoid for as long as possible.)_

_But Peter and Derek were warm and here and, even for just a brief moment in time, **his**._

_Stiles shifted just the smallest bit closer to Peter, sighing quietly and closing his eyes even as the older man adjusted his own sprawl so that the teen could more thoroughly tuck his face against the thick line of Peter’s throat; a low rumble bubbled up from the Fae’s chest, vibrating the marrow of Stiles’ bones even as the boy pressed closer to the steady warmth of the Fae’s body: a moth to the flame, and Stiles could **feel** how Derek went boneless against his back the very moment that Peter began to sound his would-be purr._

_Yet, despite the prevailing sense of warmth and safety and care, Stiles couldn’t sleep._

_There were a multitude of thoughts that he kept to the background during the glaring light of day—thoughts, too, that he couldn’t keep back once night fell and everyone around him slowly drifted off to sleep and left the teen with a mind that buzzed, hummingbird fast and filled with many chaotic things that rarely managed to ever be voiced aloud._

_Stiles watched as men and women alike were sent off, preparing to set up for a siege or a battle or massacre—perhaps it was all the same in the end since, regardless of how thoroughly anyone could prepare for the violent surge that was spiraling ever closer… there would still be pain and death. Loss. It was a realization that Stiles tried to ignore and hold off through the day, and it was made that much easier by the fact that his time was often spent with both—or either—Peter and Derek, the Fae teaching him a variety of skills, of talents, that those belonging to the Court had learned from the first moment of self-awareness. With green and blue gazes focused upon him, it was easy enough for Stiles to ignore what it all meant: it was here and now that truth was heavy, weighing the boy down, and the sixteen year-old knew that it was only a matter of time before he was forced to decide._

_Who to fight for? Whose banner would he be standing beneath?_

_With so much history that Stiles had yet to understand—probably wouldn’t ever, truth be told—what reason would the teen find to fight? What reasoning, for himself if no one else?_

_And Stiles didn’t **want** to fight._

_When it all came down to it… he didn’t want to. The teen was afraid, didn’t want to die, didn’t want to be dragged into a conflict that his mother must have somehow been aware of but still managed to hide Stiles away from; she **hadn’t told him** and, besides… the one time that Stiles had approached one of the conflicting sides—crossroads demon or not—it hadn’t mattered. Claudia Stilinski had still died, Stiles had still lost his mother: the contract had been for naught. So why march into battle for anyone when the first and only time he had reached out and had begged **Help me!** , Stiles had been left out in the cold. Only one condition: save my mother. If they had—if anyone had—managed to fulfill it, the teen would have gladly marched to war for them; he had been willing to sell his soul at the time, after all._

_There was a disillusionment to Stiles’ outlook that painted the world in shades of gray, realistic in the **knowing** that no one was willing to give him the full story, only bits and pieces for the sixteen year-old to skew his perspectives into something favorable for their own party—willing enough to don sword and armor and journey out. But Stiles’ first word had been **Why?** , even before Matka and Ojciec—and no one **here** had been willing or able to answer that ‘why’ to the teen’s satisfaction. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but satisfaction had brought it back: and Stiles was far from satisfied._

_(But so, too, came the knowledge that if Stiles did not fight, then he would be watching Derek and Peter leave without him.)_

_…but was any of this real?_

_Was the emotion that seemed so readily apparent in both men’s eyes actually **real**? Was it genuine? Or was it all just a game to maneuver Stiles exactly where he was wanted, manipulated and outplayed and all the teen could think of was the shaky, broken voice of Will Graham as he whispered **Wind him up and watch him go.** from the laptop speakers as Stiles stayed up far too late to binge watch various shows. Couldn’t help, either, the traitorous thought of ‘Did this happen to me?’ even as he shifted just enough to rest his brow on the etched line of Peter’s collarbone._

_Stiles wanted his dad._

_Wanted the familiar feeling of comfort and family that struck deep and true as John Stilinski hook an arm around his son’s shoulders to draw Stiles into a hug, letting the teen breathe deep of the scents that had become part of the make-up of the Sheriff: gun oil, Old Spice, faint traces of sweat, and the contrabanded curly fries, probably snuck in by one of the deputies that Stiles hadn’t yet managed to sell over to the teen’s way of thinking. Stiles missed his **dad** , even with the distance that had slowly spread between them after the boy’s mother’s death. It didn’t matter because, in times like this, Stiles still knew that his father would be there for him._

_**I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what choice is the right one. I can’t do this. I don’t…** Stiles finally admitted to himself, trembling and afraid and lost._

_Sixteen years old—how could **anyone** expect this from a sixteen year-old? And Stiles was certainly no Harry Potter, either in temperament or the fact that this amber-eyed teen certainly hadn’t been raised like a pig to the slaughter._

_Perhaps it was some twitch of his body—or the pounding of his heart—that eventually gave himself away, but it wasn’t long after Stiles had somehow talked himself into a corner that Derek stilled against the line of the teen’s back. The Cŵn Annwn inhaled slowly, stretching legs and arms out against Stiles’ own as the Hound pulled himself upwards from deep sleep: Derek sighed, quiet and barely there, and the whiskey-eyed boy felt the barely prickle of stubble against the pale line of his throat as the Fae rubbed and scent marked the skin there. There was a sleepy sort of intimacy in Derek’s actions, and Stiles shivered in response._

_It felt like he was drowning._

_”Stiles…?” Derek rumbled out, quiet enough to not rouse Peter—though the teen had his own sneaking suspicions about all of that—and tightened his hold around the boy’s middle for a second or two before shifting his hand higher to press the palm of his hand against Stiles’ wildly beating heart. “What’s wrong…?”_

_”Nightmare,” Stiles lied and closed his eyes, moving a leg just enough to hook his foot over the Cŵn Annwn’s calm. “It’s nothing. Go back to bed, Derek.”_

_The Hound hummed softly in response and once more tucked his face against the nape of Stiles’ neck, almost immediately after drifting back to sleep with breaths steady and even, a metronome beat that the teen could count off to. And when Derek was finally completely asleep once more, Stiles’ eyes still tightly closed beneath a furrowed brow, the teen felt a feather-light touch brush over the arch of a cheekbone._

_Lashes lifted and Stiles tilted his head just enough to meet an electric blue gaze._

+

Stiles watched from a hidden alcove as the members of both Fae Courts—Seelie and Unseelie—gathered together their warriors and supplies, each forming long lines farther than the eye could really see. It was a terrifying display of might, and the teen wondered how it would compare to the forces of Heaven and Hell that they’d soon enough to marching to face off against.

It was a doomed endeavor, one that was destined to fail for everyone involved.

And perhaps it was the edge of bitterness that flavored that particular thought, but it was enough that Stiles was unwilling to let it go: since the confrontation between himself, Derek and Peter, things had… fallen apart. Neither man returned to his bedroom after the fight, after ugly words had finally smeared across the air, and preparations had continued on regardless of the fact that Stiles _still_ refused to provide an answer.

When preparations were as extensive and finalized as Seelie King and Unseelie Queen could make them, the teen knew that they would be coming for him next. So Stiles just… slipped away, fading away from view and notice in the middle of the night. There was no real way to return to Beacon Hills, though the whiskey-eyed boy was certain that there was at least _something_ mentioned somewhere in the library; Stiles just needed to find it. But until that discovery came, the teen used what he had learned in regards to his magic to remain invisible for all intents and purposes: Stiles had become the Court’s resident ghost, unseen and unheard. And no one could find him.

Maybe it was unfair for everyone involved, but the teen _couldn’t_ : couldn’t fight, couldn’t win, couldn’t move forward when his mind constantly shifted back to his father. After all this time, would John even still think that his son was alive? It had been _weeks_ since Stiles had been taken—at the bare minimum. Most likely it had been months. And if the stories of Underhill that the teen had Wikipedia’d late at night _were_ true—there was a possibility that the time he’d been gone had stretched into _years_. (And therein, too, lay yet another frustration: Stiles didn’t know and no one would _tell him_.)

The feeling of disconnect was at the forefront of his mind, loneliness and emptiness: a solitary ship left adrift upon the ocean.

Stiles’ fingers curled over the parapet as he caught sight of Derek and Peter making their way through the masses to head towards where Talia was already astride her horse. The various members of both courts parted before the Cŵn Annwn and the Queen’s brother; Derek shifted before reaching his mother and sisters, features bleeding over until fur covered skin and claw and fang replaced the Fae’s more humanistic elements. A wolf sat on his haunches, patient and waiting, crimson eyes blood-bright in the twilight shades that painted the Unseelie’s realm. Derek was a creature born from shadow and forest and, even with the doubt and fear that had hooked their tethers deep, Stiles couldn’t help but admire the Hound in this specific form, as well: regardless of what shape he took, Derek was lovely and striking both.

Even as Derek settled between his mother and his uncle’s steeds, Peter continued forward until he reached his own mount: the older man pulled himself up and into the saddle in a smooth, practiced motion that could only have happened from centuries of practice. There was something regal in the Fae’s bearing, straight-backed and elegant, and Stiles _wanted_ with a desperation that he had never known before—wanted them both, wanted to keep Derek and Peter safe, wanted some sort of life with them both, even _with_ the chance that what the teen had thought was there had actually been a lie.

He just _wanted_.

As Peter eventually found his seat in the saddle, Stiles could have sworn that the Unseelie Fae glanced over his shoulder towards the citadel that the teen was still hiding in—that, for just a moment, their gazes met even as Peter’s flared wintry blue. The moment came and went, however, and the next time that Stiles really _focused_ upon the older man, Peter had raised a hunting horn to his lips, chest expanding as he prepared to blow into it.

When the horn sounded, a shiver went over the gathered masses, human visages bleeding away to leave only truth: the Fae’s actual forms, inhuman and otherworldly and touched with the abyss, eldritch and _different_ in the way that should have had Stiles sobbing in terror.

Instead, the teen watched as Derek grew larger and bulkier, the lines between man and wolf bleeding away in the Hound’s form until the crimson-eyed Cŵn Annwn became some mix-and-mash-up form of both.

And Peter…?

Stiles could not look away from Peter.

It suddenly made sense: Peter’s role within the Court as both Talia’s brother and her Left Hand, Derek’s deference to Peter that had a taste of something more extensive than just uncle and nephew, details and reminders and clues tumbling together and forming a whole even as the Fae’s donned cloak became ghost-pale and tattered, waving slightly in a wind that did not touch anyone else. The horn once again sounded, echoing in the valley, and the upper portion of a stag’s skull formed out of mist and air to crown the older man’s head—shadowing the upper portion of his features until only the bright neon hue of Peter’s blue gaze shone out from the darkness; a buck’s full spread of antlers feathered out from the skull, from Peter’s temples, and each dangerously-sharp point gleamed beneath the silvered light of a Cheshire moon.

The Wild Hunt.

_Herne the Hunter._

“Oh, my God…” Stiles breathed out as his knees gave out beneath him, his desperate grip upon the window’s edge the only thing that managed to keep him upright enough to watch the events below.

The horn sounded a third time and it was at that that Peter’s steed surged forward, Talia at his elbow and Derek—one of the Hounds of the Wild Hunt, a _Cŵn Annwn_ , how had Stiles truly not put two and two together?—following at both of their heels with his siblings easily keeping pace with the main group.

The head of the army (and what could it be but that?) charged farther and farther away from the citadel and, the more distance that spread out between the Unseelie Court’s ruling family and their estate home, the fainter they became—fading away into nothing more than mist and moonlight, and the sight spread down through the rest of the gathered warriors until they, too, disappeared before the teen’s gaze and became nothing more than shadows.

And then, suddenly, Stiles was alone.

He shivered at that knowledge and moved just enough to rest his forehead against the cool stone of the citadel’s walls, breathing deep and letting the air escape him in steady breaths—the desperation to _breathe_ perhaps the only thing that kept the teen from descending into a panic attack.

_He was alone._

+

As always, time moved oddly in the Fae realm, and perhaps it had been only minutes later—or maybe it was hours, Stiles had no way of genuinely knowing—but there reached a point where the amber-eyed boy managed to gather together what composure he still had remaining to push himself upright and find some use to the fact that no one had remained in the castle.

It was true that he was alone now, but maybe he could use that fact to his advantage—dig more openly through the library, searching for the various tomes that _must_ give the boy some indication as how to return back home and to his dad. With the entirety of the Court gone, Stiles did not have to be sneaky, did not have to be slow or methodical in his search.

He took another steadying breath, reaching for a calm that was still just beyond Stiles’ reach, and finally turned to head down the corridor that would lead him on the most direct route to the library.

The teen had only managed to take one solitary step forward before all he knew was-- _pain_.

It was an encompassing sort of agony, something that burrowed deep and latched itself into the very marrow of his bones: pervasive and _burning_ , to the point that Stiles felt like he’d been set on fire. Everything hurt, everything was set ablaze until the crackle of flames and the promise of death that came upon the agony’s release was the only things that the boy was aware of.

He screamed, Stiles knew he did, but the pain made him deaf and dumb and the shredded mess of his throat became just one more thing to add to his suffering:

Stiles fell to the floor, huddled in around his belly—back a vulnerable, bared arch for anyone to come near and strike down upon; the boy hurt, _hurt_ so much, and even through the blindness of his tears, Stiles was able to catch sight of the sudden gleam of gold around his wrists and throat.

The shackles of the contract that Peter had once made appear to prove his point.

The contract that should have been null and void considering the fact that the crossroads demon had never been able to fulfill her portion of the deal—didn’t matter, though, did it? Somehow the contract had still managed to tether itself to Stiles’ soul, had lain in weight until, perhaps, this very moment before yet again blazing to life: bright, so incredibly bright, and offensive, too, in the fact that it was a reminder of Stiles’ desperation and loss. The inability to prevent his own tragedy and the grief that was still so entwined in his heart that there was no way that the boy would ever be able to let it go.

(Nephilim were creatures of fire and fury and wrath and grief, and Stiles raged at the bindings even as the agony spiked that much higher, became that much more consuming.)

It was torture, and Stiles screamed and sobbed and gasped for breath—

The shackles abruptly began to glow, hotter than the heart of a star, and the sun that any of the bindings touched reddened and began to bubble and blister and flake away, sigils and runes burning their marks into Stiles’ flesh as Hell attempted to more thoroughly collar the teen to make him into nothing more than an attack dog they’d keep on leash. The insult and betrayal—even though they were _demons_ —fueled both Stiles’ agony and his rage, and the teen began to tug back on the bindings.

Stiles dug deep within himself to grasp desperately at the Spark, that divine touch, that had perhaps started all of this: magic and power and Heavenly Grace, unintentionally granted and coveted because of it. Will was the hammer that that Spark was forged upon, his might and his intention that which guided the creations that were birthed from Stiles’ magic—and _this_ , this binding, was something that the teen would not, could not, allow to keep its hold on him.

He pulled, smashing his Spark against the shackles and the contract that they’d etched upon his soul: striking again and again, refusing to give up or relent, wanting to be _free_ \--and Stiles could actually feel the metal begin to give, breaking beneath his stubbornness and pain-spurred agony, could feel the bindings shattering bit by bit beneath the force of each hit—

And it was then, when Stiles first began to taste the briefest edge of success, that reality began to twist around the boy—fading away and bleaching of color, red-tinged and shadowy hues—and Stiles was pulled _Elsewhere_.

Darkness and the Abyss were all that the teen knew for a long stretch of time—was this what forever felt like, when things faded away into this nothingness that smothered with its encompassing weight?—until, _finally_ , Stiles lost consciousness.

+

The world came crashing in.

Stiles jerked awake with a pained gasp, his scalp on fire from where fingernails dug into the thin skin—it hurt, a different sort of low-level agony—and the teen blinked away the tears from his eyes as his attention shifted outward to try and figure out what had happened to him, to see where he was and why pain was a constant ache within his limbs.

The sixteen year-old’s gaze met that of a familiar, ebon-black one, and Stiles’ eyes widened in both fear and horror, air sticking in his throat and causing him to choke and wheeze at the surprise that thrummed through him. “ _You!_ ” the boy managed to eventually snap out, jerking his head from the crossroads demon’s grip—even though it left behind several strands of hair when she refused to let him go.

“Hey there, sweet cheeks,” the blonde demon purred out softly, reaching to curl her fingers along the golden chain that connected to the collar ‘round Stiles’ throat. She jerked at the metal, forcing the boy to lose his balance and stumble in close to her. The answering smile the woman offered was predatory and hungry and inhumanly wide. “Miss me?”

The snarl that Stiles gave in reply was guttural and bordering on feral, fury twisting his features in helpless rage even as the teen lunged towards the demon—hoping, perhaps, to cause _some_ sort of damage to her regardless of the fact that Stiles was still too thoroughly bound for that desire to do much good.

She laughed at the attempt, lazily backhanding the teen and sending him sprawling before reaching for the chain once more; the demon dragged Stiles upright again, contentedly ignoring the wheezing gasps for air as the collar cut off the boy’s breathing, pressure too heavy upon his throat until he managed to kneel upright at the demon’s command.

“That wasn’t very nice,” the crossroads demon chided, voice gleeful even as she once more affectionately buried her fingers in Stiles’ hair, tugging it this way and that before forcing the teen to bare the vulnerable line of his neck to her. “It’s been eight years since we last saw one another. And I don’t even get a _hello_ , hot rod?”

“Fuck you,” Stiles gritted out, light striking his eyes _just so_ and letting them flare gold, matching the burning, angry flame that _roared_ within his chest. “Broke the contract. My mom still _died_.”

A sympathetic tut was the crossroads demon’s answer before she again backhanded Stiles, striking him for the insult given. “It was unfortunate, wasn’t it?” she mused as the teen sagged in her hold, head turning to the side so that he could spit out blood-slicked saliva onto the ground at the woman’s feet. “But Claudia Stilinski was going to die, no matter how hard I otherwise tried. But the contract _would_ have been fulfilled—if she had been nothing more than a normal human.”

Loopholes purposefully left so that the demon could take advantage of the contract years down the road—and Stiles had never hated anyone the way that he hated her: for the hope, the faith, the plans for the future. And for the grief and devastation that came when his mom had still died, anyway.

“And it was just enough to get my claws into you, wasn’t it, babycakes?” the crossroads demon continued, voice cheerful as she lightly shook the teen in her too-strong hold. Her touch once more turned affectionate as she cupped Stiles’ cheek against the palm of her hand, thumb stroking idly over the thin skin just beneath an amber eye—and Stiles’ skin _crawled_ at the levels of bad-touch she oozed out.

“…what… do you want…?” the boy asked, words coming stuttering and slow, and attempted to lean as far away from the demon as possible.

Her smile sharpened at the question, and the woman tightened her hold pointedly, using the leverage she had via her painful grip to turn Stiles’ head towards the entrance of the field tent that he had woken up in. They were atop a cliff, sharp plummet promising a nasty death just steps from the entrance—and, farther out and across what looked like the gaping mouth of a gorge, a plain spread far and wide, taking up the entire view for miles upon miles.

Bodies filled what would have been open ground, some upright and fighting, tangled together in a battle between life and death, while other forms sprawled upon the blood-soaked ground: too still and unmoving. _Dead_. Everything was painted crimson: whether it was the various fighters or the dirt beneath their feet that soaked up the blood, hungry for the liquid to finally wet the parched earth.

Angels, demons, and Fae, enmeshed with one another, points to a triangle that had blurred beyond recognition to the point that lines were no longer as clear-cut as they should have been and, maybe, in some cases, it was sibling that fought against sibling. Screams of men and women filled the air, deafening in their roar now that the tent was finally silent, and the taint of copper coated the back of Stiles’ throat—thick enough to gag on.

It was ugly and brutal, and the fight was everything that Stiles hadn’t wanted to see.

“You’re going to fight and bleed for us, moving in when all the others are tired and already wounded,” the crossroads demon whispered against the shell of the teen’s ear, and Stiles could feel the curl of her smile as her lips pulled upwards.

“…no,” Stiles bit out, refusal nothing more than a low growl: horrified at what the woman had planned for him, even as his amber-colored eyes quickly began raking over the battlefield to search for too-familiar forms.

“It’s not like you have a choice in the matter, sweet cheeks,” the demon reminded he boy, offering a wicked laugh even as she teasingly jangled the metal chain that still connected to the collar that wrapped snugly around Stiles’ throat. “At this point in the game, you have no other choice but to ask _How high?_ when I tell you to jump.”

Immediately after her statement, the teen offered a sound of refusal, disgust lighting up his whiskey-hued gaze as he tried to lean as far away from the demon as possible—not far considering the hold that she still had on the would-be leash. But enough so that Stiles no longer felt the moist heat of her breath fanning across the vulnerable line of his neck.

She laughed, though, at Stiles’ attempt at refusal, finding his rejection nothing short of entertaining, and yanked back on the collar so that it pressed hard enough to bruise against his Adam’s apple; he gagged at the sudden pressure, panicking as he felt his throat closing up, and flailed as thoroughly as he could within his bindings in a doomed attempt to get away from the woman.

“…won’t…” the boy still managed to gasp out around a wheezing breath. “ _Won’t!_ ”

Stiles could stand firm all he wanted—the demon knew that he would eventually break, either beneath pain or despair or knowledge that there was nothing that he could do to win this time around, and all she had to do was wait him out. It was only a matter of time, and the bladed curve of her smile gave truth to that assumption: with a being that had centuries worth of practice at torture, both physical and psychological, how could one sixteen year-old _child_ truly compare?

Smile spreading across her face until it became something Abyss-spawned and _evil_ , the crossroads demon jerked Stiles’ head around once more to force him into watching the battle that took place across the canyon, helpless as warriors fell—one by one by one—no sense or justice or grace in the violence that ripped through various ranks. Death not was picky about who to select to join It in its realm—wherever that was for those who were never mortal: deciding at random, nothing more or less than a roll of the dice, and the beating of Stiles’ heart quickened as he watched a particularly thick branch of Fae forces fall to the ground and not get up again.

_Derek._

_Peter._

The teen may still not have known if what they had slowly growing amongst the three of them was truth or not, was genuine or not, but the thought that either—or both—of the Unseelie men dying today… it made the breath catch in Stiles’ throat and forced him into keeping his eyes wide open, ignoring how the view temporarily blurred before tears collected and fell, trailing down his blood-streaked cheeks.

_Don’t let them die. Don’t let them die--_

Stiles’ heart stopped, stuttering and silent as the battlefield once more grew clear, sight sharpening:

He recognized the great midnight-dark bulk that was Derek’s wolf form as the shifted man darted amongst the angels and demons that had banded together to attack the warrior group that had led the charge to this battlefield. Despite the Cŵn Annwn’s gargantuan size, Derek moved with a sort of grace that was absolutely breathtaking—going from target to target, fight to fight: an unstoppable, unmovable mass that was touched with the killing edge of darkness. The training that he had undertaken with Peter was evident with each graceful dodge and roll, the retaliation that came soon after as Derek darted in close once more to strike out with fang and claw. Stiles couldn’t help but think back upon the first time he’d stumbled upon Peter’s training sessions, marveling at the older Fae’s efficient use of brutality and violence, his economy of motion—and how Derek reflected it all in the tarnished mirror that reflected back both their visages.

But Stiles’ heart stopped as he saw a pair of Dukes of Hell come up at the vulnerable line of Cora’s back; Talia’s youngest daughter was distracted, wreaking havoc through a line of Cherubim and Archangels, decimating all that she came in contact with. But, because of that intense concentration on the foes to the front… she wasn’t keeping as close an eye on her complete surroundings. And there was no one close by that would be able to keep guard.

The realization dawned that he was about to see someone that he was at least _friendly_ with die, and a strangled, bitten-off sound slipped past his lips as the teen watched events unfold with too-wide eyes. A desperate _Watch out!_ was kept muzzled and silent, fear a festering, open wound that continued to just burrow its way deeper and deeper into the cavity of his chest as the battle relentlessly raged—

But, in Cora’s particular situation, Derek managed to catch sight of the danger that his sister was in before the Dukes could strike out at his baby sister. The Cŵn Annwn _roared_ , cry echoing out across the battlefield and loud enough to make the others pause in their fighting—warriors flinching back from the absolute _fury_ that had layered itself within the sound. It was enough to make Cora freeze in terror despite the fact that she _knew_ it was her brother, was aware of the fact that Derek would never harm her—and that moment of stillness cost the Unseelie Queen’s daughter.

Lunging forward to take advantage of the young woman’s continued inattention, the Dukes struck with their blades and the metal of their weapons gleamed under the unearthly light of the sun high above. Too late, Cora realized the danger that she was in and attempted to dive out of the way, body tucking and rolling though the brief glimpse that Stiles managed to catch of her expression gave lie to the gesture. She knew it was too late and the Dukes’ blades would land.

And they would have—if Derek hadn’t gotten there first.

He darted between his sister and the high-ranking demons, using his bulk to shove Cora farther away and towards a pocket where no fighting was currently occurring; but Derek left himself open by doing so, and the hooved Duke managed to get close enough to gut the Cŵn Annwn with his blade, shoving the sword deeper at hearing the crimson-eyed Hound’s agonized howl. The second Duke come in close, as well, and his sword joined the other’s in running the Unseelie Sídhe through—both tips protruding from Derek’s back, the metal of the blades slick with blood.

Derek slumped forward and did not move.

It was that sight that made Stiles’ mind go white with static, the world muffling itself until he was deaf and dumb and nearly blind as the teen watched Derek fall and not get up, the ground beneath the Hound staining itself red as blood seeped down into the hungry earth. The teen waited—for a moment, two, three, _more_ , breath held as he prayed as he had never prayed before—expecting Derek to slowly push himself upright: to shake off the wound, to stagger to his feet. To either continue on into the fight to head towards the medic tents that Stiles knew the Fae had set up (Lydia would have been there, he was sure of it; Lydia would have helped Derek the same way that she had helped Stiles when he had first been brought into the Unseelie’s citadel).

Derek just—

Derek just needed to get up.

He _needed_ to get _up_.

(Why wasn’t he getting up?)

Why—

Why wasn’t Derek—

Derek _needed_ to _get up_ , needed to do it _now_.

**Now.**

“ _No!_ ”

The uncertainty of not knowing how Derek and Peter _honestly_ felt for him still remained: the teen was afraid that everything on their part had been a lie, had been a manipulation to get him to throw in his lot with the Daoine Sídhe—and yet, regardless of that uncertainty on the Unseelie’s end, it didn’t change the fact that Stiles knew how _he_ felt for _them_. Lie or not, both Peter and Derek had somehow managed to burrow beneath his defenses, worm their way past his wariness and paranoia, had rooted themselves as people who were necessary to Stiles: by the steady breaths that Derek gave against the nape of Stiles’ neck each and every night to the gentle mocking and sly smirk that Peter offered as they faced off against each other from across the chessboard, from the care that Peter showed Stiles as he taught the teen how to navigate his power and the way that Derek’s touch would linger when the Hound adjusted Stiles’ hold upon a sword—so many things and more, snowballing into the irreversible fact that Stiles loved them both, he did, he loved them in the same earthshattering way that his mother must have loved his father—

_And Derek was not moving._

(Because Derek was--)

“ ** _NO!_** ”

The last of Stiles’ reservations shattered and his power exploded out from him, lighting up the entire battlefield like an earth-bound supernova as the very air screamed and echoed with his cry. The field tent that he’d been brought to and the crossroads demon were torn into less than nothing, deconstructed down to their very molecules as absolute destruction spread out from Stiles in an ever-widening circle until the teen was surrounded by nothing more than ash and soot.

The shackles and collar that had bound him just moments ago had been ripped apart, the demon’s contract uprooted from Stiles’ soul as his Grace flared to its full potential: unbound and free, the teen scrambled towards the edge of the cliff—knowing that it was too late already to help Derek but _needing_ to do something regardless. Anything. Everything. Just—needing to ensure that the Cŵn Annwn somehow managed to live (Derek _needed_ to live).

As Stiles began to near the gorge’s edge, the shadow of the teen’s wings fell upon the fighters on the opposite side of the canyon, and they fell back at the possibility of the Nephilim that had been part of the prophecy foretold since perhaps the beginning of time finally stepped upon the battlefield. The rhythm of the battle would change and the end of the war was finally in sight: an end that no side truly wanted, not if they couldn’t guarantee their win.

Stiles reached the canyon’s edge and his wings spread even farther outwards in an instinctive bid for flight; but, before the whiskey-eyed teen could actually launch himself into the empty space beyond, there was a meaty _thunk_ that knocked Stiles off balance and punched all of the air from his lungs. He glanced down—

There was a spear protruding from his chest.

“ _ **Stiles!!**_ ”

That was—Peter. Peter was screaming, his voice hoarse. He was… frantic? He sounded afraid. It was enough to prompt Stiles to look upwards, away from the spear’s shaft, away from the pain that was just starting to filter through—to look upwards to meet the Wild Hunt’s Rider’s burning blue gaze from across the canyon gaping mouth. The space was too wide for Peter’s horse to jump, though it looked as if the Hunter intended to try for it, anyway. 

_Oh_ , Stiles thought, startled and pleasantly surprised. _Maybe he does… maybe he does actually care._

His legs finally gave out beneath him, and Stiles tumbled over the cliff’s edge.

+

He was surrounded by darkness.

Far in the distance—close enough to touch—endlessly stretching on around him, bleeding into forever until his eyes were filled with stars and galaxies, supernovas brightening the dark velvet of the infinite while nebulae lit Stiles from the inside out and black holes whispered from the shadowed recesses of the teen’s mind.

He floated.

There was peace and silence: everything that was, quiet and still and lingering in the pauses that came between breaths and the steady beats of a heart.

He drifted, weightless and traveling the solar wind that connected systems and galaxies—a leaf upon the water.

He was endless.

He was Eternity.

_Sssstilesssss…_

The teen stirred, sleepy with exhaustion that dragged upon the limbs that were no longer there, the ache that centered in over his chest—a brief flash of a spear, still thrumming with the force that it had been thrown with and Stiles shuddered, not wanting to remember—and the ball of light that the amber-eyed boy had become tightened, curling in on itself as the call continued to coax him towards awareness.

_Sssstilesssss…_

The Voice continued its call, tugging at the edges of the teen’s consciousness and demanding that Stiles turn his attention its way: relentless, ageless, tireless—as expansive as the universe itself, and Stiles shuddered beneath the weight of its attention. Heavy. Heady. Pressing down and down _and down and down and down_ until the teen could no longer breathe, all the air rushing from the lungs that he no longer had.

Fear flickered.

Faded.

_Who’s there?_ Stiles eventually called out in turn, tumbling from the neon-touched wind to slip away through the empty void that lingered between the stars—and his own flare of Grace lit the way, coaxing the stars that he passed to burn brighter, hotter, longer: forging a path through the darkness that would take eons to fade away.

An answer came to the teen, through the silence, and expansive for all of that: here, always, past, present, future, all-knowing, all-seeing, friend, lover, father, the Beginning and its End-- _Infinite_. The Creator that had shaped life into being with its first, violent gasp; Entropy that slowly broke things—reality—down until all that was left was the Void and the nothingness that it belonged to. _I… am All…_

The teen shivered and the ball of light that was Stiles flickered and grew dimmer for just the briefest of moments, there and gone again before the shine once more returned and burned all that much brighter for it. _Why am I here?_

_You… died…_

Rejection and refusal flared within the teen—he could not have died, he could not be dead, his dad and Scott and Peter and Derek _could not_ lose him, Stiles refused to believe the Being’s words, they had to be a _lie_ , false and untrue—and Stiles’ Grace exploded outwards, ripping across the Milky Way’s spiraling arms and melting away to join the dark matter the bled through all of the light spaces.

Distraction cut through Stiles’ agonized grief, and the ball of light that contained both Spark and soul slipped upwards to briefly hover before one of the spidersilk, gossamer-thin threads that his Grace’s tidal wave force had momentarily illuminated: a touch of intent brought those threads back into focus, hazy as they glistened, ghost-pale and hidden within the universe’s shadows, dark matter a shifting veil that kept it all from sight.

Loss was still a prevalent emotion that ached within the marrow of the teen’s would-be bones, but—even for just a minute or two—here was a mystery that had the potential to numb his heart, to distance the pain for as long as Stiles could make necessary.

_What’s that?_

_The… Balance…_ the Voice whispered, and understanding burrowed deep within the teen’s mind: the Balance that Talia, that Peter, spoke briefly of—that kept all sides on an even keel as all attempted to maneuver within the guidelines set down from the very beginning of time. Humanity had its choices, its free will, and yet…

Stiles flared his Grace once more.

The dark spaces again lit up, sparkling against the backdrop of the Void; taking a closer look at the threads that linked everything, linking events and past and future, history and what would-be and could-be together into a delicately wrought spiderweb of connections… the closer that Stiles looked, the more knots he came across. Threads had become a horribly complicated mess of strands, knotted and clumped together—ugly and bruised and swaying what should have been a true neutral one way or the other. The thread’s arms stretched out across the Milky Way, burrowing its roots deep within the earth—latching onto men’s hearts and minds—and as the light-that-was-Stiles followed each branch of the knotted filaments, he saw history shift between peace and war, good and evil: two sides of a coin that was never truly perfectly stable.

Saw that choice, that free will, was a laughable promise as sharp-edged spidersilk latched onto and took possession of the people’s souls: weaving one way or the other, sometimes managing to come to the middleground (or what should pass as it), but never truly _free_ to make those choices unaided and uninfluenced.

That… that was _wrong_.

What was freedom, truly, when blinders had constantly shadowed humanity’s gaze? Kept it from true choice? Had _free will_ been nothing more than a lie promised to ensure people’s docility? Was the war he had just _died_ in created to knot these strands further, shifting to see which influence would become more prevalent for this current eon?

If the game was already rigged, how was any of this _fair_?

Fury burned and bled within Stiles, a phoenix’s echoing cry as the teen’s Grace flared hotter and hotter, its blue-tinged flame brighter than the Milky Way’s central heart—and Stiles remembered his mother’s words from so long ago: _“We are creatures created from fire and wrath, my darling.”_

Let it all burn.

_Do… **not** …!_ the Voice warned, words suddenly edged with a fear and franticness that hadn’t been there before.

The Light-That-Once-Was-Stiles flared brighter, what was now his entire being focusing upon those gossamer threads with a razor-blade intensity, and his answer rang through the universe like a clarion of bells: _Make me._

_**DO… NOT…!** _

But the Nephilim had been born with the Infinite’s touch of Grace, blessed with the promise that had been given to humanity and so subtly had it taken away: choice, free will-- _intent_. With the both combined, free from the threads that had claimed possession of men and woman and children alike? With grief and fury, howling with loss and the injustice that his people had been subjected to forever, with love that he had for the mother who had passed down this power, this promise and heritage and destiny to him: Stiles gathered together his intention and his Spark—

And went supernova.

(The threads snapped.)


End file.
